■  ;^.-^^ 


-  •  ■-:-  V'-'   :-r«--*;i"    '•  -  ■?.-,%-  ',-t:T;~  /■    -  ■<    • 


x3^  J«4:;fV  -ii' ' ^'-j  -fi'--!  •  ■'•4 '-■',••- 

•"  t'-fc.'  I  '•  '■ ' 


aw'<W'^/?i 


^•m;0h:m-y^K 


oc 


f  ^, 


lAv 


^^ 


f\ 


il^ 


V 


Ancient  Classics  for  English  Readers 

EDI'lED    BY    THE 

REV.   W.    LUCAS    COLLINS,    M.A. 


CICERO 


The   Voluines  published  of  this  Series  contain 

HOMER  :   THE   ILIAD,  by  the  Editor. 

HOMER:    THE    ODYSSEY,  by  the  Same. 

HERODOTUS,  by  George  C.  Swayne,  M.A. 

C^SAR,  by  Anthony  Trollope. 

VIRGIL,  BY  THE  Editor. 

HORACE,  BY  Theodore  Martin. 

^SCHYLUS,  BY  Reginald  S.  Copleston,  M.A. 

XENOPHON,  BY  Sir  Alex.  Grant,  Bart.,  LL.D. 

CICERO,  BY  the  Editor. 

SOPHOCLES,  BY  Clifton  W.  Collins,  M.A. 

PLINY,    BY    A.    Church,     M.A.,    and    VV.    J. 
Brodribb,  M.A. 

EURIPIDES,  BY  William  Bodham  Donnk 

JUVENAL,  BY  Edward  Walford,  M.A. 

The  following  Authors,  by  various  Contributors,  are 
in  preparation  : — 

hesiod.     ,.    -;- 

PLAUTUS. 
TERENCE. 
TACITUS. 
LUCIAN. 

Others  will  follow. 

A    Volume  will  be  published  Quarterly,  price  $i.oo. 


CICERO 


BY   THE 


REV.    W.    LUCAS    COLLINS,  M.A. 

author  of 
•ktoniana,'  'the  public  schools,'  etc. 


^IPOR^ 


PHILADELPHIA: 

J.    B.    LIPPINCOTT   &   CO. 
I  8  73- 


n  r^  ^1  1 


3^^2^^ 


AG 

13^3 
M 1^  /a/ 


r  HAVE  to  acknowledge  my  obligations  to  Mr  Forsyth's 
well-known  '  Life  of  Cicero,'  especially  as  a  guide  to 
the  biographical  materials  which  abound  in  his  Orations 
and  Letters.  Mr  Long's  scholarly  volumes  have  also 
been  found  useful.  For  the  translations,  such  as  they 
are,  I  am  responsible.  If  I  could  have  met  with  any 
which  seemed  to  me  more  satisfactory,  I  would  gladly 
have  adopted  them, 

W.  L.  C. 


CON  T  E  N  T  S. 


PAOK 

CHAP.       I.    BIOGRAPHICAL— EARLY    LIFK    AND    EDUCATION,  1 
••          n.                   II                     PUBLIC    CAREER  —   IMPEACH- 
MENT  OF   VERUES,      .            .  13 
«                      THE    CONSULSHIP    AND    CATI- 

I'l-'^E,            ....  30 

••                      EXILE    AND    RETURN;      .            .  51 

"                      CICERO    AND    CESAR,       .            .  69 

»                     CICERO    AND    ANTONY,  .           .  75 

M       VII.    CHARACTER    AS   POLITICIAN    AND    ORATOR,       .  89 

II     VIII.    MINOR   CHARACTERISTICS,        ....  108 

n         IX.    CICERO's   CORRESPONDENCE,  .  .  .116 

n           X.    ESSAYS   ON      OLD   AGE'   AND    'FRIENDSHIP,*  .  140 

•I        XL    CICERo's    PHILOSOPHY 153 

».      XII.    CICERO's   RELIGION, 187 


II  III. 

•I  IV. 

1.  V. 

II  VI. 


CICERO. 


CHAPTER   I. 

EARLY    LIFE    AND    EDUCATION. 

When  we  speak,  in  the  language  of  our  title-page,  of 
the  *  Ancient  Classics,'  we  must  remeralDer  that  the 
word  *  ancient '  is  to  be  taken  with  a  considerable 
difference,  in  one  sense.  Ancient  all  the  Greek  and 
Roman  authors  are,  as  dated  comparatively  with  our 
modern  era.  Rut  as  to  the  antique  character  of 
their  writings,  there  is  often  a  difference  which  is 
not  merely  one  of  date.  The  poetry-  of  Homer  and 
Hesiod  is  ancient,  as  having  been  sung  and  ■written 
when  the  society  in  which  the  authors  lived,  and  to 
which  they  addressed  themselves,  was  in  its  compara- 
tive infancy.  The  chronicles  of  Herodotus  are  ancient, 
partly  from  their  subject-matter  and  partly  from  their 
primitive  style.  But  in  this  sense  there  are  ancient 
authors  belouging  to  every  nation  which  has  a  litera- 
ture of  its  own.  Viewed  in  this  light,  the  history 
A.  c.  vol.  ix.  A 


Ij  EARLY  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION. 

of  Thiicydides,  the  letters  and  orations  of  Cicero,  are  not 
ancient  at  all,  Bede,  and  Chaucer,  and  MattheAV  of  Paris, 
and  Froissart,  are  far  more  redolent  of  antiquity.  The 
several  books  which  make  up  what  we  call  the  Bible  are 
all  ancient,  no  doubt;  but  even  between  the  Chronicles 
of  the  Kings  of  Israel  and  the  Epistles  of  St  Paul  there  is 
a  far  wider  real  interval  than  the  mere  lapse  of  centuries. 

In  one  respect,  the  times  of  Cicero,  in  spite  of  their 
complicated  politics,  should  have  more  interest  for  a 
modern  reader  than  most  of  what  is  called  Ancient 
History.  Forget  the  date  but  for  a  moment,  and 
there  is  scarcely  anything  ancient  about  them.  The 
scenes  and  actors  are  modern — terribly  modern;  far 
more  so  than  the  middle  ages  of  Christendom.  Be- 
tween the  times  of  our  own  Plantagenets  and  Georges, 
for  instance,  there  is  a  far  wider  gap,  in  all  but  years, 
than  between  the  consulships  of  Cuesar  and  Kapoleon. 
The  habits  of  life,  the  ways  of  thinking,  the  family 
affections,  the  tastes  of  the  Eomans  of  Cicero's  day, 
were  in  many  respects  wonderfully  like  our  own ;  the 
political  jealousies  and  rivalries  have  repeated  them- 
selves again  and  again  in  the  last  two  or  three  centuries 
of  Europe  :  their  code  of  political  honour  and  morality, 
debased  as  it  was,  was  not  much  lower  than  that  Avhich 
was  held  by  some  great  statesmen  a  generation  or  two 
before  us.  Let  us  be  thankful  if  the  most  frightful  of 
their  vices  were  the  exclusive  shame  of  paganism. 

It  was  in  an  old  but  humble  country-house,  neai 
the  town  of  Arpinum,  under  the  Volscian  hills,  that 
Marcus  TuUius  Cicero  was  born,  one  hundred  and  six 
years  before  the  Christian  era.     The  family  was  of  an- 


BJii  FATHER  Ayn   QRANDFATUER.  3 

ciont  'equestrian'*  dignity,  but  as  none  of  its  members 
had  hitherto  borne  any  office  of  state,  it  did  not  rank 
as  '  noble.'  His  grandfather  and  his  fatlier  had  borne 
the  same  tliree  names — the  last  an  inheritance  from 
some  forgotten  ancestor,  who  had  either  been  success- 
fid  in  the  cultivation  of  vetches  {cicer),  or,  as  less  com- 
plimentary traditions  said,  had  a  wart  of  that  shape 
upon  his  nose.  The  grandfather  was  still  living  when 
the  little  Cicero  was  born  ;  a  stout  old  conservative, 
who  had  successfully^  resisted  the  attempt  to  introduce 
vote  by  ballot  into  his  native  town,  and  hated  the 
Greeks  (who  were  just  then  coming  into  fashion)  as 
heartily  as  his  English  representative,  fifty  years  ago, 
might  have  hated  a  Frenchman.  "  The  more  Greek  a 
man  knew,"  he  protested,  "  the  gretiter  rascal  he  turned 
out."  The  father  was  a  man  of  quiet  habits,  taking 
no  part  even  in  local  politics,  given  to  books,  and  to 
the  enlargement  and  improvement  of  the  old  family 
house,  which,  up  to  his  time,  seems  not  to  have  been 
more  than  a  modest  grange.  The  situation  (on  a  small 
island  formed  by  the  little  river  Fibrenust)  was  beau- 
tiful and  romantic  ;  and  the  love  for  it,  which  grew  up 
with  the  young  Cicero  as  a  child,  he  never  lost  in  the 

*  The  Equitcs  were  originally  those  who  served  in  the 
Koman  cavalry  f  but  latterly  all  citizens  came  to  be  reckoned 
in  the  class  who  had  a  certain  property  qualification,  and  who 
could  prove  free  descent  up  to  their  grandfather. 

+  Now  known  as  li  Fiume  della  Posta.  Fragments  of 
Cicero's  villa  are  thought  to  have  been  discovered  built  into 
the  walls  of  the  deserted  convent  of  San  Dominico.  The  ruin 
known  as  '  Cicero's  Tower '  has  probably  no  connection  with 
him. 


4  EARLY  LIFE  A^D  EDUCATION. 

busy  days  of  his  manhood.  It  was  in  his  eyes,  he 
said,  what  Ithaca  was  to  Ulysses, 

"  A  rough,  wild  nurse-land,  but  whose  crops  are  men." 

There  was  an  aptness  in  the  quotation  ;  for  at  Arpinum, 
a  few  years  before,  was  born  that  Caius  IMarius,  seven 
times  consul  of  Rome,  who  had  at  least  the  virtue  of 
manhood  in  him,  if  he  had  few  besides. 

But  the  quiet  country  gentleman  was  ambitious  for 
his  son.  Cicero's  father,  like  Horace's,  determined  to 
give  him  the  best  education  in  his  power;  and  of 
course  the  best  education  was  to  be  found  in  Rome, 
and  the  best  teachers  there  were  Greeks.  So  to  Rome 
young  Marcus  was  taken  in  due  time,  with  his  younger 
brother  Quintus.  TJiey  lodged  with  their  uncle-in- 
law,  Aculeo,  a  lawyer  of  some  distinction,  who  had  a 
house  in  rather  a  fashionable  quarter  of  the  city,  and 
moved  in  good  society  ;  and  the  two  boys  attended  the 
Greek  lectures  Avith  their  town  cousins.  Greek  was  as 
necessary  a  part  of  a  Roman  gentleman's  education  in 
those  days  as  Latin  and  French  are  with  us  now  ;  like 
Latin,  it  was  the  key  to  literature  (for  the  Romans 
had  as  yet,  it  must  be  remembered,  nothing  worth 
calling  literature  of  their  own);  and,  like  French,  it 
was  the  language  of  refinement  and  the  play  of  polished 
society.  Let  us  hope  that  by  this  time  the  good  old 
grandfather  was  gathered  peacefully  into  his  urn ;  it 
might  have  broken  his  heart  to  have  seen  how  enthusias- 
tically his  grandson  Marcus  threw^  himself  into  this  new- 
fangled study ;  and  one  of  those  letters  of  his  riper 
years,  stuffed  full  of  Greek  terms  and  phrases  even  to 


TRAINING  FOR   THE  BAR.  5 

affectation,  would  have  drawn  anything  but  blessings 
from  the  old  gentleman  if  he  had  lived  to  hear  them 
read. 

Young  Cicero  went  through  the  regular  curriculum 
- — grammar,  rhetoric,  and  the  Greek  poets  and  his- 
torians. Like  many  other  youthful  geniuses,  he  wrote 
a  good  deal  of  poetry  of  his  own,  which  his  friends,  as 
was  natural,  thought  very  highly  of  at  the  time,  and 
of  which  he  himself  retained  the  same  good  opinion 
to  the  end  of  his  life,  as  would  have  been  natural  to 
few  men  except  Cicero.  But  his  more  important 
studies  began  after  he  had  assumed  the  '  white  gown ' 
which  marked  the  emergence  of  the  young  Eoman 
from  boyhood  into  more  responsible  life — at  sixteen 
years  of  age.  He  then  entered  on  a  special  education  for 
the  bar.  It  could  scarcely  be  called  a  profession,  for 
an  advocate's  practice  at  Rome  was  gratuitous ;  but  it 
was  the  best  training  for  public  life  ; — it  was  the  ready 
means,  to  an  able  and  eloquent  man,  of  gaining  that 
popular  influence  which  would  secure  his  election  in 
due  course  to  the  great  magistracies  which  formed  the 
successive  steps  to  political  power.  The  mode  of 
studying  law  at  Eome  bore  a  very  considerable  resem- 
blance to  the  preparation  for  the  English  bar.  Our 
modern  law-student  purchases  his  admission  to  the 
chambers  of  some  special  pleader  or  conveyancer, 
where  he  is  supposed  to  learn  his  future  business  by 
copying  precedents  and  answering  cases,  and  he  ako 
attends  the  public  lectures  at  the  Inns  of  Court.  So 
at  Rome  the  young  aspirant  was  to  be  found  (but 
at  a  much  earlier  liour  than  would  suit  the  Temple  or 


6  EARLY  LIFE  AND  EDUCATIOX. 

Lincoln's  Inn)  in  the  open  hall  of  some  great  jurist's 
house,  listening  to  his  opinions  given  to  tlie  throng  of 
clients  who  crowded  there  every  morning  ;  while  his 
more  zealous  pupils  would  accompany  him  in  his  stroll 
in  the  Forum,  and  attend  his  pleadings  in  the  courts 
or  his  speeches  on  the  Rostra,  either  taking  down  upon 
their  tablets,  or  storing  in  their  memories,  his  dicta 
upon  legal  questions.'^  In  such  wise  Cicero  became  the 
pupil  of  Mucins  Scsevola,  whose  house  was  called  "  the 
oracle  of  Eome  " — scarcely  ever  leaving  his  side,  as  he 
himself  expresses  it ;  and  after  that  great  lawyer's 
death,  attaching  himself  in  much  the  same  way  to  a 
younger  cousin*  of  the  same  name  and  scarcely  less 
reputation.  Besides  this,  to  arm  himself  at  all  points 
for  his  proposed  career,  he  read  logic  with  Diodotusthe 
Stoic,  studied  the  action  of  ^sop  and  Eoscius — then 
the  stars  of  the  Roman  stage — declaimed  aloud  like 
Demosthenes  in  private,  made  copious  notes,  practised 
translation  in  order  to  form  a  written  style,  and  read 
hard  day  and  night.  He  trained  severely  as  an  intel- 
lectual atlilete ;  and  if  none  of  his  contemporaries 
attained  such  splendid  success,  perhaps  none  worked  so 
hard  for  it.  He  made  use,  too,  of  certain  special  advan- 
tages which  were  open  to  him — little  appreciated,  or 
at  least  seldom  acknowledged,  by  the  men  of  his  day 
— the  society  and  conversation  of  elegant  and  accom- 
plished w^omen.  In  Sca^vola's  domestic  circle,  where 
the  mother,  the  daughters,  and  the  grand -daughters 

*  These  dicta,  or  'opinions,'  of  the  great  jurists,  acquired  a 
sort  of  legal  validity  in  the  Roman  law-courts,  like  '  cases ' 
with  us. 


-^  oj[.  /0«c  (^^^'■^'^^  •    <^-^  • 


CAMPAIGN   UNDER  POMPEY.  7 

successively  seem  to  have  been  such  charming  talkers 
that  language  found  new  graces  from  tlieir  lips,  the 
young  advocate  learnt  some  of  his  not  least  valuable 
lessons.  "It  makes  no  little  difference,"  said  he  in 
his  riper  years,  "  what  style  of  expression  one  becomes 
familiar  with  in  the  associations  of  daily  life."  It  was 
another  point  of  resemblance  between  the  age  of  Cicero 
and  the  times  in  which  we  live — the  influence  of  the 
"  queens  of  society,"  whether  for  good  or  evil. 

But  no  man  could  be  completely  educated  for  a 
public  career  at  Rome  until  he  had  been  a  soldier.  By 
what  must  seem  to  us  a  mistake  in  the  Republican 
system — a  mistake  which  we  have  seen  made  more 
than  once  in  the  late  American  war — high  political 
offices  were  necessarily  combined  with  uiiHtary  com- 
mand. The  highest  minister  of  state,  consul  or  prsetor, 
however  hopelessly  civilian  in  tastes  and  antecedents, 
might  be  sent  to  conduct  a  campaign  in  Italy  or 
abroad  at  a  few  hours'  notice.  If  a  man  was  a  heaven- 
born  general,  all  went  well ;  if  not,  he  had  usually  a 
chance  of  learning  in  the  school  of  defeat.  It  was 
desirable,  at  all  events,  that  he  should  have  seen  what 
war  was  in  his  youth.  Young  Cicero  served  his  first 
campaign,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  under  the  father  of 
a  man  whom  he  was  to  know  only  too  well  in  after 
life — Pompey  the  Great — and  in  the  division  of  the 
army  which  was  commanded  by  Sylla  as  lieutenant- 
general.  He  bore  arms  only  for  a  year  or  two,  and 
probably  saw  no  very  arduous  service,  or  we  should 
certainly  have  heard  of  it  from  himself;  and  he  never 
was  in  camp  again  until  he  took  the  chief  command, 


8  EARLY  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION. 

thirty-seven  years  afterwards,  as  pro-consul  in  Cilicia. 
He  was  at  Eome,  leading  a  quiet  student-life— happily 
for  himself,  too  young  to  be  forced  or  tempted  into  an 
active  part — during  the  bloody  feuds  between  Sylla 
and  the  younger  Marius. 

He  seems  to  have  made  his  first  appearance  as  an 

advocate  when  he  was  about  twenty-five,  in  some  suit 

of  which  we  know  nothing.     Two  years  afterwards  he 

undertook  his  first  defence  of  a  prisoner  on  a  capital 

charge,  and  secured  by  his  eloquence  the  acquittal  of 

Sextus  Eoscius  on  an  accusation  of  having  murdered 

his  father.     The  charge  appears  to  have  been  a  mere 

conspiracy,  wholly  unsupported  by  evidence ;  but  the 

accuser  was  a  favourite  with  Sylla,  whose  power  was 

all  but  absolute;  and  the   innocence  of  the  accused 

was  a  very  insufficient  protection  before  a  Roman  jury 

of  those  days.     What  kind  of  considerations,  besides 

the  merits  of  the  case  and  the  rhetoric  of  counsel,  did 

usually  sway  these  tribunals,  we  shall  see  hereafter. 

In  consequence  of  this  decided  success,  briefs  came  in 

upon  the   young  pleader  almost  too  quickly.      Like 

many  other  successful  orators,  he  had  to  combat  some 

natural  deficiencies  ;  he  had  inherited  from  his  father 

a  somewhat  delicate  constitution  ;  his  lungs  were  not 

powerful,  and  his  voice  required  careful  management ; 

and  the  loud  declamation  and  vehement  action  which 

he  had  adopted  from  his  models  — and  Avhich  were 

necessary  conditions  of  success  in  the  large  arena  in 

which  a  Roman  advocate  had  to  plead— he  found  very 

hard  work.     He  left  Rome  for  a  while,  and  retired  for 

rest  and  chanssje  to  Athens. 


STUDIES  AT  ATHENS.  9 

The  six  months  which  he  spent  there,  tliough  busy 
and  studious,  must  have  been  very  pleasant  ones.  To 
one  like  Cicero,  Athens  was  at  once  classic  and  holy 
ground.  It  combined  all  those  associations  and  attrac- 
tions which  we  might  now  expect  to  find  in  a  visit  to 
the  capitals  of  Greece  and  of  Italy,  and  a  pilgrimage  to 
Jerusalem.  Poetry,  rhetoric,  philosophy,  religion — all, 
to  his  eyes,  had  their  cradle  there.  It  was  the  home 
of  all  that  was  literature  to  him  ;  and  there,  too,  were 
the  great  Eleusinian  mysteries — which  are  mysteries 
still,  but  which  contained  under  their  veil  wliatever  faitli 
in  the  Invisible  and  Eternal  rested  in  the  mind  of  an 
enlightened  pagan.  There  can  be  little  doubt  but 
that  Cicero  took  this  opportunity  of  initiation.  His 
brother  Quintus  and  one  of  his  cousins  were  with  him 
at  Athens  ;  and  in  that  city  he  also  renewed  his 
acquaintance  with  an  old  schoolfellow,  Titus  Pompon- 
ius,  who  lived  so  long  in  the  city,  and  became  so 
thoroughly  Athenian  in  his  tastes  and  habits,  that  he 
is  better  known  to  us,  as  he  was  to  his  contemporaries, 
by  the  surname  of  Atticus,  wliich  was  given  him  half 
in  jest,  than  by  his  more  sonorous  Roman  name.  It 
is  to  the  accidental  circumstance  of  Atticus  remaining 
so  long  a  voluntary  exile  from  Rome,  and  to  the  cor- 
respondence which  was  maintained  between  the  two 
friends,  with  occasional  intervals,  for  something  like 
four-and-twenty  years,  that  we  are  indebted  for  a  more 
thorough  insight  into  the  character  of  Cicero  than  we 
have  as  to  any  other  of  the  great  minds  of  antiquity  ; 
nearly  four  hundred  of  his  letters  to  Atticus,  written 
in  all  the  familiar  confidence  of  private  friendsliip  by 


10  ^^-^A'^idr^^r^FE  AND  EDUCATION. 

a  man  by  no  means  reticent  as  to  liis  personal  feel- 
ings, having  been  preserved  to  us.    Atticus's  replies  are 
lost ;  it  is  said  that  he  was  prudent  enough,  after  his 
friend's  uidiappy  death,  to  reclaim  and  destroy  them. 
They  would  perhaps  have  told  us,  in  his  case,  not  very 
much  that  we  care  to  know  beyond  what  we  know 
already.    Eich,  luxurious,  with  eh^gant  tastes  and  easy 
morality — a  true  Epicurean,  as  he  boasted  himself  to 
be — Atticus  had  nevertheless  a  kind  heart  and  an 
open   hand.       He  has  generally  been  called   selfish, 
somewhat  unfairly  ;  at  least  his  selfishness  never  took 
the  form  of  indifterence  or  unkindness  to  others.     In 
one  sense  he  was  a  truer  philosopher  than  Cicero  :  for 
he  seems  to  have  acted  tlirough  life  on  that  maxim  of 
Socrates  which  his  friend  professed  to  approve,  but 
certainly  never  followed, — that  "a  wise  man  kept  out 
of  public  business."     His  vocation  was  certainly  not 
patriotism ;  but  the  worldly  wisdom  which  kept  well 
with  men  of  all  political  colours,  and  eschewed  the 
wretched  intrigues  and  bloody  feuds  of  Rome,  stands 
out  in  no  unfavourable  contrast  with  the  conduct  of 
many  of  her  sol-dtsaiit  patriots.      If  he  declined  to 
take  a  side  himself,  men  of  all  parties  resorted  to  him 
in  their  adversity ;  and  the  man  who  befriended  the 
younger  Marius  in  his  exile,  protected  the  widow  of 
Antony,  gave  shelter  on  his  estates  to  the  victims  of 
the  triumvirate's  proscription,  and  was  always  ready  to 
offer  his  friend  Cicero  both  his  liouse  and  his  purse 
whenever  the  political  horizon  clouded  round  him, — 
this  man  was  surely  as  good  a  citizen  as  the  noisiest 
clamourer  for  "liberty"  in  the  Forum,  or  the  readiest 


TK R E y TIAr^^     'I  -"^^^^      1 1 

hand  Avitli  the  dagger.  He  kept  his  life  and  liis  pro- 
perty safe  through  all  those  years  of  peril  and  proscrip- 
tion, with  less  sacrifice  of  principle  than  many  who 
had  made  louder  professions,  and  died — by  a  singular 
act  of  voluntary  starvation,  to  make  short  work  with  an 
incurable  disease — at  a  ripe  old  age ;  a  godless  Epicur- 
ean, no  doubt,  but  not  the  worst  of  them,    -nr 

We  must  return  to  Cicero,  and  deal  somewhat  briefly 
with  the  next  few  years  of  his  life.  He  extended  his 
foreign  tour  for  two  years,  visiting  the  chief  cities  of 
Asia  Minor,  remaining  for  a  short  time  at  Rhodes  to 
take  lessons  once  more  from  his  old  tutor  Molo  the 
rhetorician,  and  everywhere  availing  himself  of  the 
lectures  of  the  most  renowned  Greek  professors,  to 
correct  and  improve  his  own  style  of  composition  and 
delivery.  Soon  after  his  return  to  Eome,  he  married. 
Of  the  character  of  his  wife  Terentia  very  different 
views  have  been  taken.  She  appears  to  have  written 
to  him  very  kindly  during  his  long  forced  absences. 
Her  letters  have  not  reached  us  ;  but  in  all  her  hus- 
band's rejDlies  she  is  mentioned  in  terms  of  apparently 
the  most  sincere  affection.  He  calls  her  repfeatedly  his 
" darling"— " the  delight  of  his  eyes"— "the  best  of 
mothers  ;"  yet  he  procured,  a  divorce  from  her,  for  no 
distinctly  assigned  reason,  after  a  married  life  of  thirty 
years,  during  which  we  find  no  trace  of  any  serious 
domestic  unhappiness.  The  imputations  on  her  honour 
made  by  Plutarch,  and  repeated  by  others,  seem 
utterly  without  foundation ;  and  Cicero's  owti  share 
in  the  transaction  is  not  improved  by  the  fact  of  his 
taking  another  wife  as  soon  as  possible — a  ward  of  his 


12  EARLY  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION. 

own,  an  almost  girl,  with  whom  he  did  not  live  a  year 
before  a  second  divorce  released  him.  Terentia  is  said 
also  to  have  had  an  imperious  temper;  but  the  only 
iiroimd  for  this  assertion  seems  to  have  been  that  she 
quarrelled  occasionally  with  her  sister-in-law  Pom- 
ponia,  sister  of  Atticus  and  wife  of  Quintus  Cicero; 
and  since  Pomponia,  by  her  own  brother's  account, 
showed  her  temper  very  disagreeably  to  lier  hus- 
band, the  feud  between  the  ladies  was  more  likely  to 
have  been  her  fault  than  Terentia's.  But  the  very 
low  notion  of  the  marriage  relations  entertained  by 
both  the  later  Greeks  and  Eomans  helps  to  throw  some 
light  upon  a  proceeding  which  would  otherwise  seem 
very  mysterious.  Terentia,  as  is  pretty  plain  from  the 
hints  in  her  husband's  letters,  was  not  a  good  manager 
in  money  matters  ;  there  is  room  for  suspicion  that 
she  was  not  even  an  honest  one  in  his  absence,  and 
was  "making  a  purse"  for  herself:  she  had  thus  failed 
in  one  of  the  onty  two  qualifications  which,  according 
to  Demosthenes — an  authority  who  ranked  very  high 
in  Cicero's  eyes — were  essential  in  a  wife,  to  be  "  a 
faithful  hotise-guardian"  and  "  a  fruitful  mother."  She 
did  not  die  of  a  broken  heart ;  she  lived  to  be  104, 
and,  according  to  Dio  Cassius,  to  have  three  more 
husbands.  Divorces  were  easy  enough  at  Rome,  and 
had  the  lady  been  a  rich  widow,  there  might  be 
nothing  so  improbable  in  this  latter  part  of  the  story, 
though  she  was  fifty  years  old  at  the  date  of  this  first 
divorce.* 

*  Cato,  who  is  the  favourite  impersonation  of  all  the  moral 
virtues  of  his  age,  divorced  his  wife — to  oblige  a  friend  ! 


CHAPTER  11. 

PUBLIC  CAREER. IMPEACHMENT  OF  VERREH. 

Increasing  reputation  as  a  brilliant  and  successful 
pleader,  and  the  social  influence  which  this  brought 
with  it,  secured  the  rapid  succession  of  Cicero  to  the 
highest  public  offices.  Soon  after  his  marriage  he  was 
elected  Quaestor — the  first  step  on  the  official  ladder — 
which,  as  he  already  posstissed  the  necessary  property 
qualification,  gave  him  a  seat  in  the  Senate  for  life. 
The  ^dileship  and  Praetorship  followed  subsequently, 
each  as  early,  in  point  of  age,  as  it  could  legally  be 
lield.*    His  practice  as  an  advocate  suffered  no  interruj)- 

*  The  Quaestors  (of  whom  tliere  were  at  this  time  twenty) 
acted  under  the  Senate  as  State  treasurers.  The  Consul  or  other 
officer  who  commanded  in  chief  during  a  camjmign  would  be 
accompanied  by  one  of  them  as  paymaster-general. 

The  ^diles,  who  were  four  in  number,  had  the  care  of  all 
public  buildings,  markets,  roads,  and  the  State  property  gene- 
rally. They  had  also  the  superintendence  of  the  national  festi- 
vals and  public  games. 

The  duties  of  the  Prsetors,  of  whom  there  were  eight,  were  prin- 
cipally judicial.  The  two  seniors,  called  the  *  City '  and 
'Foreign'  respectively,  coiTcsponded  roughly  to  our  Home  and 
Foreign  Secretaries.  These  were  all  gradual  steps  to  the  office  of 
Consul. 


14  PUBLIC  CAREER. 

tion,  except  that  his  Qusestorship  involved  his  spending 
a  year  in  Sicily.  The  Praetor  who  was  appointed  to 
the  government  of  that  province*  had  nnder  liirn  two 
quaestors,  who  were  a  kind  of  comptrollers  of  the 
^  exchequer ;  and  Cicero  was  appointed  to  the  western 
1  district,  having  his  headquarters  at  Lilybseum.  In 
the  administration  of  his  office  there  he  showed  himself 
a  thorough  man  of  business.  Tliere  was  a  dearth  of 
corn  at  Rome  that  year,  and  Sicily  was  the  great 
granary  of  the  empire.  The  energetic  measures  which 
the  new  Quaestor  took  fully  met  the  emergency.  He 
was  liberal  to  the  tenants  of  the  State,  courteous  and 
accessible  to  all,  upright  in  his  administration,  and, 
above  all,  he  kept  his  hands  clean  from  bribes  and 
peculation.  The  provincials  were  as  much  astonished 
as  delighted :  for  Rome  was  not  in  the  habit  of  send- 
ing them  such  officers.  They  invented  honours  for  him 
3uch  as  had  never  been  bestowed  on  any  minister  before. 

*  The  provinces  of  Rome,  in  their  relation  to  the  mother-state 

of  Italy,  may  be  best  compared  with  our  own  government  of 

India,  or  such  of  our  crown  colonies  as  have  no  representative 

assembly.     They  had  each  their  governor  or  lieutenant-governor, 

who  must  have  been  an  ex-minister  of  Rome  :  a  man  who  had 

been  Consul  went  out  with  the  rank  of  "pro-consul," — one 

who  had  been  Praetor  with  the  rank  of  "  pro-praitor. "     These 

held  office  for  one  or  two  years,   and  had  the  power  of  life 

and   death  within   their  respective  jurisdictions.      They  had 

under  them  one  or  more  officers  who  bore  the  title  of  Quaestor, 

who  collecited  the  taxes  and  had  the  general  management  of 

rthe  revenues  of  the  province.     The  provinces  at  this  time  were 

;  Sicily,  Sardinia  with  Corsica,  S[)ain  and  Gaul  (each  in  two  divi- 

i  sions)  ;  Greece,  divided  into  Macedonia  and  Aehaia  (the  Morea) ; 

I  Asia,  Syria,  Cilicia,  Bithynia,  Cyprus,  and  Africa  in  four  divi- 

;  sions.     Others  were  added  afterwards,  under  the  Empire. 


QUjESTORSHIP  in  SICILY.  15 

No  wonder  the  young  oJORcial's  head  (he  was  not  much 
over  thirty)  was  somewhat  turned.  "  I  thought,"  he 
said,  in  one  of  his  speeches  afterwards — introducing 
with  a  quiet  humour,  and  with  all  a  practised  orator's 
skill,  one  of  those  personal  anecdotes  which  relieve  a 
long  speech — "  I  thought  in  my  heart,  at  the  time, 
that  the  people  at  Eome  must  be  talking  of  nothing 
but  my  quaestorship."  And  he  goes  on  to  tell  his 
audience  how  he  was  undeceived. 

"The  people  of  Sicily  had  devised  for  me  unpre- 
cedented honours.  So  I  left  the  island  in  a  state  of 
great  elation,  thinking  that  the  Roman  people  would  at 
once  offer  me  everything  without  my  seeking.  But  when 
I  was  leaving  my  province,  and  on  my  road  home,  I 
happened  to  land  at  Puteoli  just  at  the  time  when  a  good 
many  of  our  most  fashionable  peojDle  are  accustomed 
to  resort  to  that  neighbourhood.  I  very  nearly  collapsed, 
gentlemen,  when  a  man  asked  me  what  day  I  had  left 
Rome,  and  whether  there  was  any  news  stirring?  When 
I  made  answer  that  I  Avas  returning  from  my  province 
— '  Oh  !  yes,  to  be  sure,'  said  he  ;  '  Africa,  I  believe  1 ' 
'  No,'  said  I  to  him,  considerably  annoyed  and  dis- 
gusted ;  'from  Sicily.'  Then  somebody  else,  with  the 
air  of  a  man  who  knew  all  about  it,  said  to  him — 
'  What !  don't  you  know  that  he  was  Qusestor  at  Syra- 
cuse? '  [It  was  at  Lilybajum — quite  a  different  district:] 
No  need  to  make  a  long  story  of  it ;  I  swallowed  my 
indignation,  and  made  as  though  I,  like  the  rest,  had 
come  there  for  the  waters.  But  I  am  not  sure, 
gentlemen,  whether  that  scene  did  not  do  me  more 
good  than  if  everybody  then  and  there  had  publicly 


16  IMPEACHMENT  OF    VERRES. 

congratulated  me.  For  after  I  had  thus  found  out  that 
the  people  of  Rome  have  somewhat  deaf  ears,  but  very 
keen  and  sharp  eyes,  I  left  olf  cogitating  what  people 
Avould  hear  about  me ;  I  took  care  that  thenceforth 
they  should  see  me  before  them  every  day  :  I  lived  in 
their  sight,  I  stuck  close  to  the  Forum  ;  the  porter  at 
my  gate  refused  no  man  admittance — my  very  sleep  was 
never  allowed  to  be  a  plea  against  an  audience."  * 

Did  we  not  say  that  Cicero  was  modern,  not 
ancient^  Have  we  not  here  the  original  of  that 
Cambridge  senior  wrangler,  who,  happening  to  enter 
a  London  theatre  at  the  same  moment  with  the  king, 
bowed  all  round  with  a  gratified  embarrassment,  think- 
ino-  that  the  audience  rose  and  cheered  at  him  ? 

It  was  while  he  held  the  office  of  yEdile  that  he  made 
his  first  appearance  as  public  prosecutor,  and  brought 
to  justice  the  most  important  criminal  of  the  day. 
Verres,  late  Prcetor  in  Sicily,  was  charged  with  high 
crimes  and  misdemeanours  in  his  government.  The 
grand  scale  of  his  off'ences,  and  the  absorbing  interest 
of  the  trial,  have  led  to  his  case  being  quoted  as  an 
obvious  parallel  to  that  of  Warren  Hastings,  though 
with  much  injustice  to  the  latter,  so  far  as  it  may  seem 
to  imply  any  comparison  of  moral  character.  This 
Yerres,  the  corrupt  son  of  a  corrupt  father,  had  during 
his  three  years'  rule  heaped  on  the  unhappy  province 
every  evil  which  tyranny  and  rapacity  could  inflict. 
He  had  found  it  prosperous  and  contented  :  he  left 
it  exhausted  and  smarting  under  its  wrongs.  He  met 
his  impeachment  now  Avith  considerable  confidence. 
*  Defence  of  Plancius,  c.  26,  27. 


THE  ROMAN  LAW-COURTS.  17 

The  gains  of  his  first  year  of  office  were  sufficient, 
he  said,  for  liimself ;  the  second  had  been  for  his 
friends;  the  third  produced  more  than  enough  to  bribe 
a  jury. 

The  trials  at  Eome  took  place  in  the  Forum — the 
open  space,  of  nearly  five  acres,  lying  between  the 
Capitoline  and  Palatine  hills.  It  was  the  city  mar- 
ket-place, but  it  was  also  the  place  where  the  popula- 
tion assembled  for  any  public  meeting,  political 
or  other  —  where  the  idle  citizen  strolled  to  meet 
his  friends  and  hear  the  gossip  of  the  day,  and 
where  the  man  of  business  made  his  appointments.  . 
Courts  for  the  administration  of  justice — magnificent 
halls,  called  basilicce — had  by  this  time  been  erected 
on  the  north  and  south  sides,  and  in  these  the  ordinary 
trials  took  place  ;  but  for  state  trials  the  open  Forum 
was  itself  the  court.  One  end  of  the  wide  area  was 
raised  on  a  somewhat  higher  level  —  a  kind  of  dais 
on  a  large  scale — and  was  separated  from  the  rest  by 
the  Rostra,  a  sort  of  stage  from  which  the  orators 
spoke.  It  was  here  that  the  trials  were  held.  A 
temporary  tribunal  for  the  presiding  officer,  with  ac- 
commodation for  counsel,  witnesses,  and  jury,  was 
erected  in  the  open  air  ;  and  the  scene  may  perhaps 
best  be  pictured  by  imagining  the  principal  square 
in  some  large  town  fitted  up  with  oj^en  hustings  on  a 
large  scale  for  an  old-fashioned  county  election,  by  no 
means  omitting  the  intense  popular  excitement  and 
mob  violence  appropriate  to  such  occasions.  Temples 
of  the  gods  and  other  public  buildings  overlooked  the 
area,  and  the  steps  of  these,  on  any  occasion  of  great 
.^.  0.  vol.  ix.  B 


18  IMPEACHMENT  OF   VERRES. 

excitement,  would  be  crowded  by  those  who  were 
anxious  to  see  at  least,  if  they  could  not  hear. 

Verres,  as  a  state  criminal,  would  be  tried  before  a 
special  commission,  and  by  a  jury  composed  at  this 
time  entirely  from  the  senatorial  order,  chosen  by  lot 
(with  a  limited  right  of  cliallenge  reserved  to  both 
parties)  from  a  panel  made  out  every  year  by  the  praetor. 
This  magistrate,  who  was  a  kind  of  minister  of  justice, 
usually  presided  on  such  occasions,  occupying  the  curule 
chair,  which  was  one  of  the  well-known  privileges  of 
high  office  at  Eome.  But  his  office  was  rather  that  of 
the  modern  chairman  who  keeps  order  at  a  public 
meeting  than  that  of  a  judge.  Judge,  in  our  sense  of 
the  word,  there  was  none ;  the  jury  were  the  judges 
both  of  law  and  fact.  They  were,  in  short,  the  recog- 
nised assessors  of  the  praetor,  in  whose  hands  the 
administration  of  justice  Avas  supposed  to  he.  The 
law,  too,  was  of  a  higlily  flexible  character,  and  the 
appeals  of  the  advocates  were  rather  to  the  passions 
and  feelings  of  the  jurors  than  to  the  legal  points  of 
the  case.  Cicero  himself  attached  comparatively  little 
weight  to  this  branch  of  his  profession; — "Busy  as 
I  am,"  he  says  in  one  of  his  speeches,  "  I  could  make 
myself  lawyer  enough  in  three  days."  The  jurors  gave 
each  their  vote  by  ballot, — '  guilty,'  '  not  guilty,'  or  (as 
in  the  Scotch  courts)  *  not  proven,' — and  the  majority 
carried  the  verdict. 

But  such  trials  as  that  of  Verres  were  much  more 
like  an  impeachment  before  the  House  of  Commons 
than  a  calm  judicial  inquiry.  The  men  who  would 
have  to  try  a  defendant  of  his  class  would  be,  in  very 


A    ROMAN  JURY.  19 

few  cases,  honest  and  impartial  weighers  of  the  evi- 
dence. Their  large  number  (varying  from  fifty  to 
seventy)  weakened  the  sense  of  individual  responsibi- 
lity, and  laid  them  more  open  to  the  appeal  of  the 
advocates  to  their  political  passions.  Most  of  them 
would  come  into  court  prejudiced  in  some  degree  by 
tlie  interests  of  party  ;  many  would  be  hot  partisans. 
Cicero,  in  his  treatise  on  '  Oratory,'  explains  clearly 
for  the  pleader's  guidance  the  nature  of  the  tribunals 
to  which  he  had  to  appeal.  "  Men  are  influenced  in 
their  verdicts  much  more  by  prejudice  or  favour,  or 
greed  of  gain,  or  anger,  or  indignation,  or  pleasure,  or 
hope  or  fear,  or  by  misapprehension,  or  by  some  excite- 
ment of  their  feelings,  than  either  by  the  facts  of  the 
case,  or  by  established  precedents,  or  by  any  rules  or 
principles  Avhatever  either  of  law  or  equity." 

Verres  was  supported  by  some  of  the  most  powerful 
families  at  Eome.  Peculation  on  the  part  of  governors 
of  provinces  had  become  almost  a  recognised  principle : 
many  of  those  who  held  offices  of  state  either  had  done, 
or  were  waiting  their  turn  to  do,  much  the  same  as  the 
present  defendant;  and  every  effort  had  been  made  by 
his  friends  either  to  put  off  the  trial  indefinitely,  or  to 
turn  it  into  a  sham  by  procuring  the  appointment  of  a 
private  friend  and  creature  of  his  own  as  public  prosecu- 
tor. On  the  other  hand,  the  Sicilian  families,  whom  hf 
had  wronged  and  outraged,  had  their  share  of  influence 
also  at  Rome,  and  there  was  a  growing  impatience  of  the 
insolence  and  rapacity  of  the  old  governing  houses, 
of  whose  worst  qualities  the  ex-governor  of  SicHy  was 
a  fair  type.     There  were  many  reasons  which  would 


20  IMPEACHMENT  OF   VERRES. 

lead  Cicero  to  take  up  such  a  cause  energetically.  It 
was  a  great  openiug  for  him  in  what  we  may  call  his 
profession  :  his  former  connection  with  the  government 
of  Sicily  gave  him  a  personal  interest  in  the  cause  of 
the  province  ;  and,  above  all,  the  prosecution  of  a  state 
offender  of  such  importance  was  a  lift  at  once  into  the 
foremost  ranks  of  political  life.  He  spared  no  pains  to 
get  up  his  case  thoroughly.  He  went  all  over  the 
island  collecting  evidence;  and  his  old  popularity  there 
did  him  good  service  in  the  work. 

There  was,  indeed,  evidence  enough  against  the  late 
governor.  The  reckless  gratification  of  his  avarice  and 
his  passions  had  seldom  satisfied  him,  without  the  addi- 
tion of  some  hitter  insult  to  the  sufferers.  But  there 
was  even  a  more  atrocious  feature  in  the  case,  of  which 
Cicero  did  not  fail  to  make  good  use  in  his  appeal  to 
a  Roman  jury.  Many  of  the  unhappy  victims  had 
the  Koman  franchise.  The  torture  of  an  unfortunate 
Sicilian  might  be  turned  into  a  jest  by  a  clever  advo- 
cate for  the  defence,  and  regarded  by  a  philosophic 
jury  with  less  tlian  the  cold  compassion  with  which  we 
ren-ard  the  suffering's  of  the  lower  animals  ;  but  "  to 
scourge  a  man  that  was  a  Roman  and  uncondemned," 
even  in  tlie  far-off  province  of  Judea,  was  a  thought 
which,  a  century  later,  made  the  officers  of  the  great 
Empire,  at  its  pitch  of  powder,  tremble  before  a  wan- 
dering teacher  who  bore  the  despised  name  of  Chris- 
tian. No  one  can  possibly  tell  the  tale  so  well  as 
Cicero  himself;  and  the  passage  from  his  speech  for 
the  prosecution  is  an  admirable  specimen  both  of  his 
power  of  pathetic  narrative  and  scatliiiig  denunciation. 


CASE   OF  G A  VI US.  21 

"  How  shall  I  speak  of  Publiiis  Gavins,  a  citizen  of 
Consa  ?  With  what  powers  of  voice,  with  what  force  of 
language,  with  Avhat  sufficient  indignation  of  soul,  can 
T  tell  the  tale  1  Indignation,  at  least,  Avill  not  fail 
me  :  the  more  must  I  strive  that  in  this  my  pleading 
tl)e  other  requisites  may  be  made  to  meet  the  gravity 
of  the  subject,  the  intensity  of  my  feeling.  For  the 
accusation  is  such  that,  when  it  was  first  laid  before 
me,  I  did  not  think  to  make  use  of  it ;  though  I  knew 
it  to  be  perfectly  true,  I  did  not  think  it  would  be 
credible. — How  shall  I  now  proceed? — when  I  have 
already  been  speaking  for  so  many  hours  on  one  sub- 
ject— his  atrocious  cruelty ;  when  I  have  exhausted 
upon  other  points  well-nigh  all  the  powers  of  language 
such  as  alone  is  suited  to  that  man's  crimes  ; — when  I 
have  taken  no  precaution  to  secure  your  attention  by 
any  variety  in  my  charges  against  him,  —  in  what 
fashion  can  I  now  speak  on  a  charge  of  this  import- 
ance ]  I  think  there  is  one  way — one  course,  and  only 
one,  left  for  me  to  take.  I  will  place  the  facts  before 
you ;  and  they  have  in  themselves  such  weight,  that 
no  eloquence — I  will  not  say  of  mine,  for  I  have  none 
— but  of  any  man's,  is  needed  to  excite  your  feelings. 

"  This  Gavius  of  Consa,  of  whom  I  speak,  had  been 
among  tlie  crowds  of  Eoman  citizens  who  had  been 
thrown  into  prison  under  that  man.  Somehow  he  had 
made  his  escape  out  of  the  Quarries,*  and  had  got  to 

*  This  was  one  of  the  state  prisons  at  S}Tacuse,  so  called, 
said  to  have  been  constructed  by  the  tyrant  Dionysius.  They 
were  the  quarries  from  whicli  the  stone  was  dug  for  building  the 
city,  and  had  been  converted  to  their  present  purpose.     Cicero, 


22  IMPEACIIMEyi  OF    VERRES. 

Messana ;  and  when  he  saw  Italy  and  the  towers  of 
Rhegiimi  now  so  close  to  him,  and  out  of  tlie  horror 
and  shadow  of  death  felt  himself  breathe  with  a  new 
life  as  he  scented  once  more  the  fresh  air  of  liberty  and 
the  laws,  he  began  to  talk  at  Messana,  and  to  complain 
that  he,  a  Eoman  citizen,  had  been  put  in  irons — 
that  he  was  going  straight  to  Rome — that  he  would  be 
ready  there  for  Verres  on  his  arrival. 

"The  wretched  man  little  knew  that  he  might  as  well 
liave  talked  in  this  fasliion  in  the  governor's  palace  before 
his  very  face,  as  at  Messana.  For,  as  I  told  you  before, 
this  city  he  had  selected  for  himself  as  the  accomplice 
in  his  crimes,  the  receiver  of  his  stolen  goods,  the  con- 
fidant of  all  his  wickedness.  So  Gavius  is  brought 
at  once  before  the  city  magistrates ;  and,  as  it  so 
chanced,  on  that  very  day  Yerres  himself  came  to 
Messana.  The  case  is  reported  to  him  ;  that  there  is  a 
certain  Roman  citizen  who  complained  of  having  been 
put  into  the  Quarries  at  Syracuse ;  that  as  he  was  just 
going  on  board  ship,  and  was  uttering  threats — really 
too  atrocious — against  Verres,  they  had  detained  him, 
and  kept  him  in  custody,  that  the  governor  himself 
might  decide  about  him  as  should  seem  to  him  good. 
Verres  thanks  the  gentlemen,  and  extols  their  goodwill 
and  zeal  for  his  interests.  He  himself,  burning  with 
rage  and  malice,  comes  down  to  the  court.     His  eyes 

wlio  no  doubt  had  seen  the  one  in  question,  describes  it  as  sunk 
to  an  immense  depth  in  the  solid  rock.  There  was  no  roof;  and 
the  unhappy  prisoners  were  exposed  there  "to  tlie  sun  by  day, 
and  to  the  rain  and  frosts  by  nif,dit."  In  these  places  the  suiTi- 
vors  of  the  unfortunate  Atlienian  expedition  against  Syracuse 
were  confined,  and  died  in  great  numbers. 


'  1   AM  A    ROMAN  CITIZES:  23 

flashed  fire ;  cruelty  was  written  on  every  line  of  liia  face. 
All  present  watched  anxiously  to  see  to  what  lengths 
he  meant  to  go,  or  what  steps  he  would  take ;  when 
suddenly  he  ordered  the  prisoner  to  be  dragged  forth, 
and  to  be  stripped  and  bound  in  the  open  forum,  and 
the  rods  to  be  got  ready  at  once.  The  unhappy  man 
cried  out  that  he  was  a  Eoman  citizen — that  he  had 
the  municipal  franchise  of  Consa — that  he  had  served 
in  a  campaign  with  Lucius  Pretius,  a  distinguished 
Roman  knight,  now  engaged  in  business  at  Panormus, 
from  whom  Verres  might  ascertain  the  truth  of  his 
statement.  Then  that  man  replies  that  he  has  dis- 
covered that  he,  Gavins,  has  been  sent  into  Sicily  as  a 
spy  by  the  ringleaders  of  the  runaway  slaves  ;  of  which 
charge  there  was  neither  witness  nor  trace  of  any  kind, 
or  even  suspicion  in  any  man's  mind.  Then  he  ordered 
the  man  to  be  scourged  severely  all  over  his  body. 
Yes — a  Roman  citizen  was  cut  to  pieces  with  rods  in 
the  open  forum  at  Messana,  gentlemen;  and  as  the 
punishment  went  on,  no  word,  no  groan  of  the  wretched 
man,  in  all  his  anguish,  was  heard  amid  the  sound  of 
the  lashes,  but  this  cry, — '  I  am  a  Roman  citizen  !'  By 
such  protest  of  citizenship  he  thought  he  could  at  least 
save  himself  from  anything  like  blows — could  escai)e 
the  indignity  of  personal  torture.  But  not  only  did 
he  fail  in  thus  deprecating  the  insult  of  the  lash,  but 
when  he  redoubled  his  entreaties  and  his  appeal  to 
the  name  of  Rome,  a  cross — yes,  I  say,  a  cross — 'was 
ordered  for  that  most  unfortunate  and  ill-fated  man, 
who  had  never  yet  beheld  such  an  abuse  of  a  governoi''8 
power. 


24  IMPEACHMENT  OF   VERRES. 

"  0  name  of  liberty,  sweet  to  our  ears  !  0  rights  of 
citizenship,  in  which  we  glory  !  0  laws  of  Porcius  and 
Sempronius !  0  privilege  of  the  tribune,  long  and  sorely 
regretted,  and  at  last  restored  to  the  people  of  Rome  ! 
Has  it  allcome  to  this,  that  a  Eoman  citizen  in  a  province 
of  the  Roman  people — in  a  federal  town — is  to  be  bound 
and  beaten  with  rods  in  the  forum  by  a  man  who  only 
holds  those  rods  and  axes — those  awful  emblems — by 
grace  of  that  same  people  of  Rome*?  What  shall  I 
say  of  the  fact  that  fire,  and  red-hot  plates,  and 
other  tortures  were  applied?  Even  if  his  agonised  en- 
treaties and  pitiable  cries  did  not  check  you,  were 
you  not  moved  by  the  tears  and  groans  which  burst 
from  the  Roman  citizens  who  were  present  at  the 
scene  1  Did  you  dare  to  drag  to  the  cross  any  man 
who  claimed  to  be  a  citizen  of  Rome  1 — I  did  not  in- 
tend, gentlemen,  in  my  former  pleading,  to  press  this 
case  so  strongly — I  did  not  indeed  ;  for  you  saw  your- 
selves how  the  public  feeling  was  already  embittered 
against  the  defendant  by  indignation,  and  hate,  and 
dread  of  a  common  peril." 

He  then  proceeds  to  prove  by  witnesses  the  facts  of 
the  case  and  the  falsehood  of  the  charge  against  Gavins 
of  having  been  a  spy.  "  However,"  he  goes  on  to  say, 
addressing  himself  now  to  Verres,  "  we  will  grant,  if 
you  please,  that  your  suspicions  on  this  point,  if  false, 
were  honestly  entertained." 

*'  You  did  not  know  who  the  man  was ;  you  sus- 
pected him  of  being  a  spy.  I  do  not  ask  the 
grounds  of  your  suspicion.  I  impeach  you  on  your 
own    evidence.     He    said   he   Avas   a  Roman   citizen. 


*1  AM  A   ROMAN  CITIZEN:       ,  25 

Had  you  yourself,  Yerres,  been  seized  and  led  out 
to  execution,  in  Persia,  say,  or  in  the  farthest  In- 
dies, what  other  cry  or  protest  could  you  raise  but 
that  you  were  a  Eonian  citizen  1  And  if  you,  a 
stranger  there  among  strangers,  in  the  hands  of  bar- 
barians, amongst  men  who  dwell  in  the  farthest  and 
remotest  regions  of  the  earth,  would  have  found  pro- 
tection in  the  name  of  your  city,  known  and  renowned 
in  every  nation  under  heaven,  could  the  victim  whom 
you  were  dragging  to  the  cross,  be  he  who  he  might — 
and  you  did  not  know  Avho  he  was — when  he  declared 
he  was  a  citizen  of  Kome,  could  he  obtain  from  you,  a 
Eoman  magistrate,  by  the  mere  mention  and  claim  of 
citizenship,  not  only  no  reprieve,  but  not  eveu  a  brief 
respite  from  death  1 

"  Men  of  neither  rank  nor  wealth,  of  humble  birth 
and  station,  sail  the  seas  ;  they  touch  at  some  spot 
they  never  saw  before,  where  they  are  neither  per- 
sonally known  to  those  whom  they  visit,  nor  can  always 
find  any  to  vouch  for  their  nationality.  But  in  this 
siugle  fact  of  their  citizenship  they  feel  they  shall  be 
safe,  not  only  with  our  own  governors,  who  are  held  in 
check  by  the  terror  of  the  laws  and  of  public  opinion 
— not  only  among  those  who  share  that  citizenship  of 
Eome,  and  who  are  united  with  them  by  community  of 
language,  of  laws,  and  of  many  things  besides — but  go 
where  they  may,  this,  they  think,  will  be  their  safe- 
guard. Take  away  this  confidence,  destroy  this  safe- 
guard for  our  Eoman  citizens — once  establish  the  prin- 
ciple  that  there  is  no  protection  in  the  words,  '  I  am  a 
citizen  of  Eome ' — that  prsetor  or  other  magistrate  may 


26  IMPEACHMENT  OF    VERRES. 

with  impunity  sentence  to  what  punishment  he  will  a 
man  who  says  he  is  a  Roman  citizen,  merely  because 
somebody  does  not  know  it  for  a  fact ;  and  at  once,  by 
admitting  such  a  defence,  you  are  shutting  up  against 
our  Eoman  citizens  all  our  provinces,  all  foreign  states, 
despotic  or  independent — all  the  whole  world,  in  short, 
which  has  ever  lain  open  to  our  national  enterprise 
beyond  all." 

He  turns  again  to  Yerres. 

"  But  why  talk  of  Gavins  ?  as  though  it  were 
Gavins  on  whom  you  were  wreaking  a  private  ven- 
geance, instead  of  rather  waging  w^ar  against  the 
very  name  and  rights  of  Eoman  citizenship.  You 
showed  yourself  an  enemy,  I  say,  not  to  the  indivi- 
dual man,  but  to  the  common  cause  of  liberty.  For 
what  meant  it  that,  when  the  authorities  of  Mes- 
sana,  according  to  their  usual  custom,  would  have 
erected  the  cross  behind  their  city  on  the  Pompeian 
road,  you  ordered  it  to  be  set  up  on  the  si(]e  that  looked 
toward  the  Strait?  ^"^ay,  and  added  this — which  you 
cannot  deny,  which  you  said  opeidy  in  the  liearing  of 
all — that  you  chose  that  spot  for  tliis  reason,  that  as 
he  had  called  himself  a  Eonian  citizen,  he  might  be 
able,  from  his  cross  of  punishment,  to  see  in  the  dis- 
tance his  country  and  his  home  !  And  so,  gentlemen, 
that  cross  was  the  only  one,  since  Messana  was  a  city, 
that  was  ever  erected  on  that  spot.  A  point  which 
commanded  a  view  of  Italy  was  chosen  by  the  defend- 
ant for  the  express  reason  that  the  dying  sufferer,  in 
his  last  agony  and  toi'ment,  might  see  how^  the  rights  of 
the   slave  and  the   freeman   were   sepai'ated   by  that 


RESULT   OF   THE   TRIAL.  27 

narrow  streak  of  sea;  that  Italy  might  look  upon  a 
son  of  hers  suffering  the  capital  penalty  reserved  for 
slaves  alone. 

"  It  is  a  crime  to  put  a  citizen  of  Eome  in  bonds  ; 
it  is  an  atrocity  to  scourge  him  ;  to  put  him  to  death 
is  well-nigh  parricide  ;  what  shall  I  say  it  is  to  crucify 
hini] — Language  has  no  word  by  which  I  may  desig- 
nate such  an  enormity.  Yet  with  all  this  yon  man 
was  not  content.  '  Let  him  look,'  said  he,  '  towards 
his  country ;  let  him  die  in  full  sight  of  freedom  and 
the  laws.'  It  was  not  Gavins ;  it  was  not  a  single 
victim,  unknown  to  fame,  a  mere  individual  Eoman 
citizen ;  it  was  the  common  cause  of  liberty,  the  com- 
mon rights  of  citizenship,  which  you  there  outraged 
and  put  to  a  shameful  death." 

But  in  order  to  judge  of  the  thrilling  effect  of  such 
passages  upon  a  Eoman  jury,  they  must  be  read  in  the 
grand  periods  of  the  oration  itself,  to  which  no  trans- 
lation into  a  language  so  different  in  idiom  and  rhythm 
as    English    is  from  Latin    can    possibly    do  justice. 
The  fruitless  appeal  made  by  the  unhapj^y  citizen  to 
the  outraged  majesty  of  Eome,  and  the  indignant  de- 
mand   for    vengeance   which   the   great  orator  founds 
upon  it — proclaiming  the  recognised  principle  that,  in 
every  quarter  of  the  world,  the  humblest  wanderer  who 
could  say  he  was  a  Eoman  citizen  should  find  protec- 
tion in  the  name — will  be  always  remembered  as  hav- 
ing supplied   Lord  Palmerston  with  one  of  his   most 
telUng  illustrations.     But  this  great  speech  of  Cicero's 
— perhaps  the  most  magnificent  piece  of  declamation 
in  any  language — though  written  and  preserved  to  us, 


28  IMPEACHMENT  OF    VERRES. 

was  never  spoken.  The  whole  of  the  pleadings  in  the 
case,  which  extend  to  some  length,  were  composed  for 
the  occasion,  no  doubt,  in  substance,  and  we  have  to 
thank  Cicero  for  publisliiug  them  afterwards  in  full. 
But  Yerres  only  waited  to  hear  the  brief  opening  speech 
of  his  prosecutor ;  he  did  not  dare  to  challenge  a 
verdict,  but  allowing  judgment  to  go  by  default,  with- 
drew to  Marseilles  soon  after  the  trial  opened.  He 
lived  there,  undisturbed  in  the  enjoyment  of  his 
plunder,  long  enough  to  see  the  fall  and  assassination 
of  his  great  accuser,  but  only  (as  it  is  said)  to  share  his 
fate  soon  afterwards  as  one  of  the  victims  of  Antony's 
proscription.  Of  his  guilt  there  can  be  no  question  ; 
his  fear  to  face  a  court  in  which  he  had  many  friends 
is  sufficient  presumptive  evidence  of  it ;  but  we  must 
hesitate  in  assuming  the  deepness  of  its  dye  from  the 
terrible  invectives  of  Cicero,  ^o  sensible  person  will 
form  an  opinion  upon  the  real  merits  of  a  case,  even  in 
an  English  court  of  justice  now,  entirely  from  the 
speech  of  the  counsel  for  the  prosecution.  And  if  we 
were  to  go  back  a  century  or  two,  to  the  state  trials  of 
those  days,  we  know  that  to  form  our  estimate  of  a 
prisoner's  guilt  from  such  data  only  would  be  doing 
him  a  gross  injustice.  We  have  onl}'-  to  remember  the 
exclamation  of  Warren  Hastings  himself,  whose  trial, 
as  has  been  said,  has  so  many  points  of  resemblance 
with  that  of  Verres,  when  Burke  sat  down  after  the 
torrent  of  eloquence  which  he  had  hurled  against  the 
accused  in  his  opening  speech  for  the  prosecution  ; — "I 
thought  myself  for  the  moment,"  said  Hastings,  "the 
guiltiest  man  in  England." 


JIORTENSIUS.  29 

The  result  of  this  trial  was  to  raise  Cicero  at  once  to 
the  leadership — if  so  modern  an  expression  may  be 
used — of  the  Roman  bar.  Up  to  this  time  the  position 
had  been  held  by  Hortensius,  the  counsel  for  Yerres, 
whom  Cicero  himself  calls  "  the  king  of  the  courts." 
He  was  eight  years  the  senior  of  Cicero  in  age,  and 
many  more  professionally,  for  he  is  said  to  have  made 
his  first  public  speech  at  nineteen.  He  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  most  extraordinary  memory,  a  musical 
voice,  and  a  rich  flow  of  language  :  but  Cicero  more 
than  implies  that  he  was  not  above  bribing  a  jury.  It 
was  not  more  disgraceful  in  those  days  than  bribing  a 
voter  in  our  own.  The  two  men  were  very  unlike  in 
one  respect ;  Hortensius  was  a  fop  and  an  exquisite 
(he  is  said  to  have  brought  an  action  against  a  colleague 
for  disarranging  the  folds  of  his  gown),  while  Cicero's 
vanity  was  quite  of  another  kind.  After  Yerres's  trial, 
the  two  advocates  were  frequently  engaged  together  in 
the  same  cause  and  on  the  same  side  :  but  Hortensius 
seems  quietly  to  have  abdicated  his  forensic  sovereignty 
before  the  rising  fame  of  his  younger  rival.  They 
became,  ostensibly  at  least,  personal  friends.  What 
jealousy  there  was  between  them,  strange  to  say,  seems 
always  to  have  been  on  the  side  of  Cicero,  who  could 
not  be  convinced  of  the  friendly  feeling  which,  on 
Hortensius's  part,  there  seems  no  reason  to  doubt. 
After  his  rival's  death,  however,  Cicero  did  full  justice 
to  his  merits  and  his  eloquence,  and  even  inscribed  to 
his  memory  a  treatise  on  '  Glory,'  which  has  been  lost. 


CHAPTER     III. 

THE     CONSULSHIP    AND    CATILINE. 

1'here  was  no  check  as  yet  in  Cicero's  career.  It  had 
been  a  steady  course  of  fame  and  success,  honestly 
earned  and  well  deserved  ;  and  it  was  soon  to  culmin- 
ate in  that  great  civil  triumph  which  earned  for  him 
the  proud  title  of  Pater  Patrice — the  Father  of  his 
Country.  It  was  a  phrase  which  the  orator  himself  had 
invented  ;  and  it  is  possible  that,  with  all  his  natural 
self-complacency,  he  might  have  felt  a  little  uncomfort- 
able under  the  compliment,  when  he  remembered  on 
whom  he  had  originally  bestowed  it — upon  that  Caius 
Marius,  whose  death  in  his  bed  at  a  good  old  age, 
after  being  seven  times  consul,  he  afterwards  uses  as 
an  argument,  in  the  mouth  of  one  of  his  imaginary 
disputants,  against  the  existence  of  an  overruling  Pro- 
vidence. In  the  prime  of  his  manhood  he  reached  the 
f^reat  object  of  a  Eoman's  ambition — he  became  virtu- 
ally Prime  Minister  of  the  rei)ul)lic  :  for  he  was  elected, 
by  acclamation  rather  than  by  vote,  the  first  of  the  two 
consuls  for  the  year,  and  his  colleague,  Caius  Anlonius 
(who  had  beaten  the  third  candidate,  the  notorious 


CICERO'S  CONSULSHIP.  31 

Catiline,  by  a  few  votes  only)  was  a  man  wlio  valued 
his  office  chiefly  for  its  opportunities  of  peculation, 
and  whom  Cicero  knew  how  to  manage.  It  is  true 
that  this  high  dignity — so  jealous  were  the  old  re- 
publican principles  of  individual  power — would  last 
only  for  a  year  ;  but  that  year  was  to  be  a  most  eventful 
one,  both  for  Cicero  and  for  Eome.  The  terrible  days 
of  Marius  and  Sylla  had  passed,  only  to  leave  behind 
a  taste  for  blood  and  licence  amongst  the  corrupt  aris- 
tocracy and  turbulent  commons.  There  were  men 
amongst  the  younger  nobles  quite  ready  to  risk  their 
lives  in  the  struggle  for  absolute  power  ;  and  the  mob 
was  ready  to  follow  whatever  leader  was  bold  enough 
to  bid  highest  for  their  support. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  do  much  more  than  glance 
at  the  well-known  story  of  Catiline's  conspiracy.  It 
was  the  attempt  of  an  able  and  desperate  man  to  make 
himself  and  his  partisans  masters  of  Eome  by  a  bloody 
revolution.  Catiline  was  a  member  of  a  noble  but  im- 
poverished family,  who  had  borne  arms  under  Sylla,  and 
had  served  an  early  apprenticeship  in  bloodshed  under 
that  unscrupulous  leader.  Cicero  has  described  his 
character  in  terms  which  probably  are  not  unfair,  be- 
cause the  portrait  was  drawn  by  him,  in  the  course  of 
his  defence  of  a  young  friend  who  had  been  too  much 
connected  with  Catiline,  for  the  distinct  purpose  of 
showing  the  popular  qualities  wliich  had  dazzled  and 
attracted  so  many  of  the  youth  of  Rome. 

"  He  had  about  him  very  many  of,  I  can  hardly  say 
the  visible  tokens,  but  the  adumbrations  of  the 
highest  qualities.      There  was  in  his   character  that 


32  THE   CONSULSHIP  AND  CATILINE. 

whicli  tempted  him  to  indulge  the  worst  passions,  l)ut 
also  that  which  spurred  him  to  energy  and  hard  work. 
Licentious  appetites  burnt  fiercely  within  him.  but  there 
was  also  a  strong  love  of  active  military  service.    I  be- 
lieve that  there  never  lived  on  earth  such  a  monster  of 
inconsistency, — such  a  compound  of  opposite  tastes  and 
passions  brought  into  conflict  with  each  other.     Who 
at  one  time  was  a  greater  favourite  with  our  most 
illustrious  men  1     Who  was  a  closer  intimate  with  our 
very  basest  ■?     Who  could  be  more  greedy  of  money 
than  he  was  1     Who  could  lavish  it  more  profusely  1 
There  were  these  marvellous  qualities  in  the  man, — he 
made  friends  so  universally,  he  retained  them  by  his 
obliging  ways,  he  was  ready  to  share  what  he  had  with 
them  all,  to  help  them  at  their  need  with  his  money, 
his  influence,   his  personal    exertions  —  not  stopping 
short  of  the  most  audacious  crime,  if  there  was  need  of 
it.     He  could  change  his  very  nature,  and  rule  himself 
by  circumstances,  and  turn  and  bend  in  any  direction. 
He  lived  soberly  with  the  serious,  he  was  a  boon  com- 
panion with  the  gay  ;  grave  with  the  elders,  merry  with 
the  young ;  reckless  among  the  desperate,  profligate 
with  the  depraved.     With  a  nature  so  complex  and 
many-sided,  he  not  only  collected  round  him  wicked 
and  desperate  characters  from  all  quarters  of  the  world, 
but  he  also  attracted  many  brave  and  good  men  by  his 
simulation  of  virtue.    It  would  have  been  impossible  for 
him  to  have  organised  that  atrocious  attack  upon  the 
Commonwealth,  unless   that  fierce  outgrowth  of  de- 
praved passions  had  rested  on  some  under-stratum  of 
agreeable  qualities  and  powers  of  endurance." 


CATILINE.  33 

Born  in  the  same  year  with  Cicero,  his  unsuccessful 
rival  for  the  consulship,  and  hating  him  with  the  im- 
placable hatred  with  which  a  bad,  ambitious,  and  able 
man  hates  an  opponent  who  is  his  superior  in  ability 
and  popularity  as  well  as  character,  Catiline  seems  to 
have  felt,  as  his  revolutionary  plot  ripened,  that  be- 
tween the  new  consul  and  himself  the  fates  of  Rome 
must  choose.  He  had  gathered  round  him  a  band  of 
profligate  young  nobles,  deep  in  debt  like  himself,  and 
of  needy  and  unscrupulous  adventurers  of  all  classes. 
He  had  partisans  who  were  collecting  and  drilling 
troops  for  him  in  several  parts  of  Italy.  The  pro- 
gramme was  assassination,  abolition  of  debts,  confisca- 
tion of  property  :  so  little  of  novelty  is  there  in  re- 
volutionary principles.  The  first  plan  had  been  to 
murder  the  consuls  of  the  year  before,  and  seize  the 
government.  It  had  failed  through  his  own  impatience. 
He  now  hired  assassins  against  Cicero,  choosing  the 
opportunity  of  the  election  of  the  Incoming  consuls, 
which  always  took  place  some  time  before  their  en- 
trance on  office.  But  the  plot  was  discovered,  and  the 
election  was  put  off.  When  it  did  take  place,  Cicero 
appeared  in  the  meeting,  wearing  somewhat  ostenta- 
tiously a  corslet  of  bright  steel,  to  show  that  he  knew 
his  danger ;  and  Catiline's  partisans  found  the  place  of 
meeting  already  occupied  by  a  strong  force  of  the 
younger  citizens  of  the  middle  class,  who  had  armed 
themselves  for  the  consul's  protection.  The  election 
passed  off  quietly,  and  Catiline  was  again  rejected.  A 
second  time  he  tried  assassination,  and  it  failed — so 
watchful  and  well  informed  was  the  intended  victim. 

A.  c.  vol.  ix.  c 


34  THE  CONSULSHIP  AND  CATILINE. 

And  now  Cicero,  perhaps,  was  roused  to  a  conscious- 
ness that  one  or  other  must  fall ;  for  in  the  unusually 
determined  measures  which  he  took  in  the  suppression 
of  the  conspiracy,  the  mixture  of  personal  alarm  with 
patriotic  indignation  is  very  perceptible.  By  a  for- 
tunate chance,  the  whole  plan  of  the  conspirators  was 
betrayed.  Rebel  camps  had  been  formed  not  only  in 
Italy,  but  in  Spain  and  Mauritania :  Rome  was  to  be 
set  on  fire,  the  slaves  to  be  armed,  criminals  let  loose, 
the  friends  of  order  to  be  put  out  of  the  way.  The 
consul  called  a  meeting  of  the  senate  in  the  temple  of 
Jupiter  Stator,  a  strong  position  on  the  Palatine  Hill, 
and  denounced  the  plot  in  all  its  details,  naming  even 
the  very  day  fixed  for  the  outbreak.  The  arch-conspir- 
ator had  the  audacity  to  be  present,  and  Cicero  addressed 
him  personally  in  the  eloquent  invective  which  has 
come  to  us  as  his  "  First  Oration  against  Catiline." 
His  object  was  to  drive  his  enemy  from  the  city  to  the 
camp  of  his  partisans,  and  thus  to  bring  matters  at 
once  to  a  crisis  for  which  he  now  felt  himself  prepared. 
This  daily  state  of  public  insecurity  and  personal  danger 
had  lasted  too  long,  he  said  : 

"  Therefore,  let  these  conspirators  at  once  take  their 
side;  let  them  separate  themselves  from  honest  citizens, 
and  gather  themselves  together  somewhere  else ;  let 
them  put  a  wall  between  us,  as  I  have  often  said.  Let 
us  have  them  no  longer  thus  plotting  the  assassination 
of  a  consul  in  his  own  house,  overawing  our  courts  of 
justice  with  armed  bands,  besieging  the  senate-house 
with  drawn  swords,  collecting  their  incendiary  stores  to 
burn  our  city.     Let  us  at  last  be  able  to  rearl  plainly 


SPEECH  AGAINST  CATILINE.  35 

in  every  Komau's  face  whether  he  he  loyal  to  his 
country  or  no.  I  may  promise  you  this,  gentlemen  of 
the  Senate — there  shall  be  no  lack  of  diligence  on  the 
part  of  your  consuls  ;  there  will  he,  I  trust,  no  lack  of 
dignity  and  firmness  on  your  own,  of  spirit  amongst 
the  Roman  knights,  of  unanimity  amongst  all  honest 
men,  but  that  when  Catiline  has  once  gone  from  us, 
everything  will  be  not  only  discovered  and  brought 
into  the  light  of  day,  but  also  crushed,  —  ay,  and 
punished.  Under  such  auspices,  I  bid  you,  Catiline, 
go  forth  to  wage  your  impious  and  unhallowed  war,— 
go,  to  the  salvation  of  the  state,  to  your  own  over- 
throw and  destruction,  to  the  ruin  of  all  who  have  joined 
you  in  your  great  wickedness  and  treason.  And  thou, 
great  Jupiter,  whose  worship  Eomulus  founded  here 
coeval  with  our  city  ; — whom  we  call  truly  the  'Stay'  * 
of  our  capital  and  our  empire  ; — tliou  wilt  protect  thine 
own  altars  and  the  temples  of  thy  kindred  gods,  the  walls 
and  roof-trees  of  our  homes,  the  lives  and  fortunes  of 
our  citizens,  from  yon  man  and  his  accon)plices.  These 
enemies  of  all  good  men,  invaders  of  their  country, 
plunderers  of  Italy,  linked  together  in  a  mutual  bond  of 
crime  and  an  alliance  of  villany,  thou  wilt  surely  visit 
with  an  everlasting  punishment,  living  and  dead  ! " 

Catiline's  courage  did  not  fail  him.  He  had  been 
sitting  alone — for  all  the  other  senators  had  shrunk 
away  from  the  bench  of  which  he  had  taken  possession. 
He  rose,  and  in  reply  to  Cicero,  in  a  forced  tone  of 
humility  protested  his  innocence.  He  tried  also  an- 
other point.     Was  he, — a  man  of  ancient  and  noble 

*  'Stator.' 


36  THE  CONSULSHIP  AND   CATILINE. 

fainil}'', — to  be  hastily  condemned  by  bis  fellow-nobles 
on  the  word  of  this  '  foreigner,'  as  he  contemptuously 
called  Cicero — this  -parvenu  from  Arpinum  %  But  the 
appeal  failed ;  his  voice  was  drowned  in  the  cries  of 
'  traitor'  which  arose  on  all  sides,  and  with  threats 
and  curses,  vowing  that  si]ice  he  was  driven  to  despera- 
tion he  would  involve  all  Eome  in  his  ruin,  he  rushed 
out  of  the  Senate-house.  At  dead  of  night  he  left  the 
city,  and  joined  the  insurgent  camp  at  FfBsulae. 

When  the  thunders  of  Cicero's  eloquence  had  driven 
Catiline  from  the  Senate-house,  and  forced  him  to 
join  his  fellow-traitors,  and  so  put  himself  in  the 
position  of  levying  open  war  against  the  state,  it  re- 
mained to  deal  with  those  influential  conspirators  who 
had  been  detected  and  seized  within  the  city  Myalls. 
In  three  subsequent  speeches  in  the  Senate  he  justi- 
fied the  course  he  had  taken  in  allowing  Catiline  to 
escape,  exposed  further  particulars  of  the  conspiracy, 
and  urged  the  adoption  of  strong  measures  to  crush 
it  out  within  the  city.  Even  now,  not  all  Cicero's 
eloquence,  nor  all  tlie  efibrts  of  our  imagination  to 
realise,  as  men  realised  it  then,  the  imminence  of 
the  public  danger,  can  reconcile  the  summary  pro- 
cess adopted  b}^  the  consul  with  our  English  notions 
of  calm  and  deliberate  justice.  Of  the  guilt  of  the 
men  there  was  no  doubt  ;  most  of  them  even  admitted 
it.  But  there  was  no  formal  trial ;  and  a  few  hours 
after  a  vote  of  death  had  been  passed  upon  them  in  a 
hesitating  Senate,  Lentulus  and  Cethegus,  two  niem- 
bers  of  that  august  body,  with  three  of  their  com- 
panions  in   guilt,    were   brouglit    from    their    separate 


EXECUTION  OF  THE  CONSPIRATORS.  37 

places  of  coiifinenient,  with  some  degree  of  secrecy  (as 
appears  from  different  writers),  carried  down  into  the 
gloomy  prison-vaults  of  the  Tullianum,*  and  there 
quietly  strangled,  by  the  sole  authority  of  the  consul. 
Unquestionably  they  deserved  death,  if  ever  poli- 
tical criminals  deserved  it :  the  lives  and  liberties  of 
good  citizens  were  in  danger;  it  was  necessary  to 
strike  deep  and  strike  swiftly  at  a  conspiracy  which 
extended  no  man  knew  how  widely,  and  in  which  men 
like  Julius  Caesar  and  Crassus  were  strongly  suspected 
of  being  engaged.  The  consuls  had  been  armed  with 
extra-constitutional  powers,  conveyed  by  special  reso- 
lution of  the  Senate  in  the  comprehensive  formula 
that  they  "  were  to  look  to  it  that  the  state  suffered 
no  damage."  Still,  without  going  so  far  as  to  call  this 
unexampled  proceeding,  as  the  German  critic  Momm- 
sen  does,  '•  an  act  of  the  most  brutal  tyranny,"  it  is 
easy  to  understand  how  Mr  Forsyth,  bringing  a  calm 
and  dispassionate  legal  judgment  to  bear  upon  the 
case,  finds  it  impossible  to  reconcile  it  with  our  ideas 
of  dignified  and  even-handed  justice,  t  It  was  the 
hasty  instinct  of  self-preservation,  the  act  of  a  weak 
government  uncertain  of  its  very  friends,  under  the 
influence  of  terror — a  terror  for  which,  no  doubt,  there 
were  abundant  grounds.  When  Cicero  stood  on  the 
prison  steps,  where  he  had  waited  to  receive  the  report 

*  A  state  dungeon,  said  to  have  been  built  in  the  reign  of  Ser- 
vius  Tullius.  It  was  twelve  feet  under  ground.  Executions 
often  took  place  there,  and  the  bodies  of  the  criminals  were 
afterwards  thrown  dowai  the  Gemonian  steps  (which  were  close 
at  hand)  into  the  Forum,  for  the  people  to  see. 

t  Life  of  Cicero,  p.  119. 


38  THE  COXSULSIIIP  AND   CATILINE. 

of  those  who  were  making  sure  work  with  the  prisoners 
within,  and  announced  their  fate  to  the  assembled 
crowd  below  in  the  single  word  "  Vixerurd"  (a 
euphemism  which  we  can  only  weakly  translate  into 
"They  have  lived  their  life"),  no  doubt  he  felt  that 
he  and^the  republic  held  theirs  from  that  moment  by 
a  firmer  tenure ;  no  doubt  very  many  of  those  who 
heard  him  felt  that  they  could  breathe  again,  now  that 
the  grasp  of  Catiline's  assassins  was,  for  the  moment  at 
all  events,  off  their  throats  ;  and  the  crowd  who  fol- 
lowed the  consul  home  were  sincere  enough  when  they 
hailed  such  a  vigorous  avenger  as  the  '  Father  of  his 
Country,'  But  none  the  less  it  was  that  which  poli- 
ticians have  called  worse  than  a  crime — it  was  a  politi- 
cal blunder ;  and  Cicero  came  to  find  it  so  in  after 
years  ;  though — partly  from  his  immense  self-apprecia- 
tion, and  partly  from  an  honest  determination  to  stand 
by  his  act  and  deed  in  all  its  consequences — he  never 
suffered  the  shadow  of  such  a  confession  to  appear  in 
Ids  most  intimate  correspondence.  He  claimed  for 
himself  ever  afterwards  the  sole  glory  of  having  saved 
the  state  by  such  prompt  and  decided  action  ;  and  in 
this  he  was  fully  borne  out  by  the  facts  :  justifiable 
or  unjustifiable,  the  act  was  his ;  and  there  were 
burning  hearts  at  Rome  which  dared  not  speak  out 
against  the  j^opular  consul,  but  set  it  down  to  his  sole 
account  against  the  day  of  retribution. 

For  the  present,  however,  all  went  successfully. 
The  boldness  of  the  consul's  measures  cowed  the  dis- 
affected, and  confirmed  the  timid  and  wavering.  His 
colleague  Antonius — himself  by  no  means  to  be  de- 


DEATH  OF  CATILINE.  39 

pended  on  at  this  crisis,  having  but  lately  formed 
a  coalition  with  Catiline  as  against  Cicero  in  the  elec- 
tion for  consuls — had,  by  judicious  management,  been 
got  away  from  Rome  to  take  the  command  against  the 
rebel  army  in  Etruria.  He  did  not,  indeed,  engage  in 
the  campaign  actively  in  person,  having  just  now  a 
fit  of  the  gout,  either  real  or  pretended ;  but  his 
lieutenant-general  was  an  old  soldier  who  cared  chiefly 
for  his  duty,  and  Catiline's  band — reckless  and  des- 
perate men  who  had  gathered  to  his  camp  from  all 
motives  and  from  all  quarters — were  at  length  brought 
to  bay,  and  died  fighting  hard  to  the  last.  Scarcely  a 
man  of  them,  except  the  slaves  and  robbers  who  had 
swelled  their  ranks,  either  escaped  or  was  made 
prisoner.  Catiline's  body — easily  recognised  by  his 
remarkable  height — was  found,  still  breathing,  lying 
far  in  advance  of  his  followers,  surrounded  by  the  dead 
bodies  of  the  Eoman  legionaries — for  the  loss  on  the 
side  of  the  Republic  had  been  very  severe.  The  last 
that  remained  to  him  of  the  many  noble  qualities  which 
had  marked  his  earlier  years  was  a  desperate  personal 
courage. 

For  the  month  that  yet  remained  of  his  consulship, 
Cicero  was  the  foremost  man  in  Rome — and,  as  a 
consequence,  in  the  whole  world.  loobies  and  com- 
mons vied  in  doing  honour  to  the  saviour  of  the  state. 
Catulus  and  Cato — men  from  whose  lips  words  of 
honour  came  with  a  double  weight — saluted  him  pub- 
licly by  that  memorable  title  oi .Pater  Patrice;  and 
not  only  the  capital,  but  most  of  the  provincial  towns 
of  Italy,  voted  him  some  public  testimony  of  his  un- 


40  THE   CONSULSHIP  AND  CATILINE. 

rivalled  services,  ^o  man  had  a  more  profound  appre- 
ciation of  those  services  than  the  great  orator  himself. 
It  is  possible  that  other  men  have  felt  quite  as  vain  of 
their  own  exploits,  and  on  far  less  grounds ;  but  surely 
no  man  ever  paraded  his  self-complacency  like  Cicero. 
His  vanity  was  indeed  a  thing  to  marvel  at  rather 
than  to  smile  at,  because  it  was  the  vanitv  of  so  able 
a  man.  Other  great  men  have  h^QVL  either  too  really 
great  to  entertain  the  feeling,  or  have  been  wise  enough 
to  keep  it  to  themselves.  But  to  Cicero  it  must  have 
been  one  of  the  enjoyments  of  his  life.  He  harped 
upon  his  consulsliip  in  season  and  out  of  season,  in  his 
letters,  in  his  judicial  pleadings,  in  his  public  speeches 
(and  we  may  be  sure  in  his  conversation),  until  one 
would  think  his  friends  must  have  hated  the  subject 
even  more  than  his  enemies.  He  wrote  accounts  of  it 
in  prose  and  verse,  in  Latin  and  Greek — and,  no  doubt, 
only  limited  them  to  those  languages  because  they  were 
the  only  ones  he  knew.  The  well-known  line  which 
provoked  the  ridicule  of  critics  like  Juvenal  and  Quin- 
tilian,  because  of  the  unlucky  jingle  peculiarly  unpleas- 
ant to  a  Roman  ear — 

"  0  fortunatam  natam  me  consule  Romam  !  " 

expresses  the  sentiment  which — rhyme  or  no  rhyme, 
reason  or  no  reason — he  Avas  continually  repeating  in 
some  form  or  other  to  himself  and  to  every  one  who 
would  listen. 

His  consulship  closed  in  glory  ;  but  on  his  very  last 
day  of  office  there  was  a  warning  voice  raised  amidst 
the   triumph,   which  might  have  opened   his  eyes — 


CLOSE   OF  HIS  CONSULSHIP.  41 

]ieiliaps  it  did — to  the  troubles  which  were  to  come. 
He  stood  up  in  the  Rostra  to  make  the  usual  address 
to  the  people  on  laying  down  his  authority.  Metellus 
Nepos  had  been  newly  elected  one  of  the  tribunes  : 
it  was  his  office  to  guard  jealously  all  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  the  Eoman  commons.  Influenced,  it  is 
said,  by  Coesar — possibly  himself  an  undiscovered  parti- 
san of  Catiline — he  dealt  a  blow  at  the  retiring  consul 
under  cover  of  a  discharge  of  duty.  As  Cicero  was 
about  to  speak,  he  interposed  a  tribune's  '  veto ' ;  no 
man  should  be  heard,  he  said,  who  had  put  Roman 
citizens  to  death  without  a  trial.  There  was  consterna- 
tion in  the  Forum.  Cicero  could  not  dispute  what 
was  a  perfectly  legal  exercise  of  the  tribune's  power ; 
only,  in  a  few  emphatic  words  which  he  seized  tlie 
opportunity  of  adding  to  the  usual  formal  oath  on  quit- 
ting office,  he  protested  that  his  act  had  saved  Eome. 
The  people  shouted  in  answer,  "Thou  hast  said  true  !" 
and  Cicero  went  home  a  private  citizen,  but  with  that 
hearty  tribute  from  his  grateful  countrymen  ringing 
pleasantly  in  his  ears.  But  the  bitter  words  of  Metel- 
lus were  yet  to  be  echoed  by  his  enemies  again  and 
again,  until  that  fickle  popular  voice  took  them  up, 
and  hoAvled  them  after  the  once  popular  consul. 

Let  us  follow  him  for  a  while  into  private  life ;  a 
pleasanter  companionship  for  us,  we  confess,  than  the 
unstable  glories  of  the  political  arena  at  Rome.  In 
his  family  and  social  relations,  the  great  orator  wins 
from  us  an  amount  of  personal  interest  and  sympathy 
which  he  fails  sometimes  to  command  in  his  career 
as  a  statesman.      At  forty-five  years  of  age    he  has 


.SHIP  ANh   CATILINE. 


become  a  very  wealthy  man — has  bought  for  some- 
thing like  ,£30,000  a  noble  mansion  on  the  Palatine 
Hill ;  and  besides  the  old-fashioned  family  seat  near 
Arpinum — now  become  his  own  by  his  father's  death — 
he  has  built,  or  enlarged,  or  bought  as  they  stood,  villas 
at  Antium,  at  Formias,  at  Pompeii,  at  CuniiB,  at  Puteoli, 
and  at  half-a-dozen  other  places,  besides  the  one  fav- 
ourite spot  of  all,  which  was  to  him  almost  what  Ab- 
botsford  was  to  Scott,  the  home  which  it  was  the 
delight  of  his  life  to  embellish — his  country-house 
among  the  pleasant  hills  of  Tusculum.'''  It  had  once 
belonged  to  Sulla,  and  was  about  twelve  miles  from 
Rome.  In  that  beloved  building  and  its  arrangements 
he  indulged,  as  an  ample  purse  allowed  him,  not  only 
a  highly-cultivated  taste,  but  in  some  respects  almost  a 
whimsical  fancy.  "  A  mere  cottage,"  he  himself  terms 
it  in  one  place  ;  but  this  was  when  he  was  deprecating 
accusations  of  extravagance  which  were  brought  against 
him,  and  we  all  understand  something  of  the  pride 
which  in  such  matters  "  apes  humility."  He  would 
have  it  on  the  plan  of  the  Academia  at  Athens,  with 
its  palcBstra  and  open  colonnade,  where,  as  he  tells  us, 
he  could  walk  and  discuss  jiolitics  or  philosophy  with 
his  friends.  Greek  taste  and  design  were  as  fashion- 
able among  the  Romans  of  that  day  as  the  Louis 
Quatorze  style  was  with  our  grandfathers.  But  its 
grand  feature  was  a  library,  and  its  most  valued  furni- 
ture was  books.  Without  books,  he  said,  a  house  was 
but  a  body  without  a  soul.     He  entertained  for  these 

*  Near  the  modern  town  of  Frascati.     But  tliere  is  no  cer- 
tainty as  to  the  site  of  Cicero's  villa. 


CICERO'S    VILLA    AT 


treasures  not  only  the  calm  love  of  a  reader,  but  the 
passion  of  a  bibliophile  ;  he  was  particular  about  his 
bindings,  and  admired  the  gay  colours  of  the  covers  in 
which  the  precious  manuscripts  were  kept  as  w^ell  as 
the  more  intellectual  beauties  within.  He  had  clever 
Greek  slaves  employed  from  time  to  time  in  making 
copies  of  all  such  works  as  were  not  to  be  readily  pur- 
chased. He  could  walk  across,  too,  as  he  tells  us,  to 
his  neighbour's,  the  young  Luculkis,  a  kind  of  ward 
of  his,  and  borrow  from  the  library  of  that  splendid 
mansion  any  book  he  wanted.  His  friend  Atticus 
collected  for  him  everywhere — manuscripts,  paintings, 
statuary;  though  for  sculpture  he  professes  not  to 
care  much,  except  for  such  subjects  as  might  form  ap- 
])ropriate  decorations  for  his  j^alcestra  and  his  library. 
Very  pleasant  must  have  been  the  days  spent  together 
by  the  two  friends — so  alike  in  their  private  tastes  and 
liabits,  so  far  apart  in  their  chosen  course  of  life — when 
they  met  there  in  the  brief  holidays  which  Cicero  stole 
from  the  law-courts  and  the  Forum,  and  sauntered  in 
the  shady  walks,  or  lounged  in  the  cool  library,  in 
that  home  of  lettered  ease,  where  the  busy  lawyer  and 
politician  declared  that  he  forgot  for  a  while  all  the 
toils  and  vexations  of  public  life. 

He  had  his  little  annoyances,  however,  even  in  these 
happy  hours  of  retirement.  Morning  calls  were  an 
infliction  to  which  a  country  gentleman  was  liable  in 
ancient  Italy  as  in  modern  England.  A  man  like 
Cicero  Avas  very  good  company,  and  somewhat  of  a 
lion  besides  ;  and  country  neighbours,  wherever  he  set 
up  his  rest,  insisted  on  bestowing  their  tediousness  on 


44  THE   CONSULSHIP  AND  CATILINE. 

liim.  His  villa  at  Formiae,  his  favourite  residence 
next  to  Tusculum,  was,  he  protested,  more  like  a  public 
hall.  Most  of  his  visitors,  indeed,  had  the  considera- 
tion not  to  trouble  him  after  ten  or  eleven  in  the  fore- 
noon (fashionable  calls  in  those  days  began  uncomfort- 
ably early) ;  but  there  v^^ere  one  or  two,  especially  his 
next-door  neighbour,  Arrius,  and  a  friend's  friend, 
named  Sebosus,  who  were  in  and  out  at  all  hours  :  the 
former  had  an  unfortunate  taste  for  philosophical  dis- 
cussion, and  was  postponing  his  return  to  Eome  (he 
was  good  enough  to  say)  from  day  to  day  in  order  to 
enjoy  these  long  mornings  in  Cicero's  conversation. 
Such  are  the  doleful  complaints  in  two  or  three  of  the 
letters  to  Atticus ;  but,  like  all  sucli  complaints,  they 
were  probably  only  half  in  earnest :  popularity,  even 
at  a  watering-place,  was  not  very  unpleasant,  and  the 
writer  doubtless  knew  how  to  practise  the  social  philo- 
sophy which  he  recommends  to  others,  and  took  his 
place  cheerfully  and  pleasantly  in  the  society  which 
he  found  about  him — not  despising  his  honest  neigh- 
bours because  they  had  not  all  adorned  a  consulship 
or  saved  a  state. 

There  were  times  when  Cicero  fancied  that  this 
rural  life,  with  all  its  refinements  of  "wealth  and  taste 
and  literar}^  leisure,  was  better  worth  living  than  the 
public  life  of  the  capital.  His  friends  and  his  books, 
he  said,  were  the  company  most  congenial  to  him  ; 
"  politics  might  go  to  the  dogs ; "  to  count  the  waves 
as  they  rolled  on  the  beach  was  happiness ;  he  "  had 
rather  be  mayor  of  Antium  than  consul  at  Rome "  ; 
"  rather  sit  in  his  own  library  with  Atticus  in  their 


LIFE  IX   THE  COUNTRY.  45 

favourite  seat  under   the  bust   of  Aristotle    than   in 
tlie  curule  chair."     It  is  true  that  these  longings  for 
retirement  usually  followed  some  political  defeat  or 
mortification  ;  that  his  natural  sphere,  the  only  life  in 
which  he  could  be  really  happy,  was  in  the  keen  ex- 
citement of  party  warfare — the  glorious  battle-field  of 
the  Senate  and  the  Forum.     The  true  key-note  of  his 
mind  is  to  be  found  in  these  words  to  his  friend  Coelius : 
*'  Cling  to  the  city,  my  friend,  and  live  in  her  light : 
all  employment  abroad,  as  I  have  felt  from  my  earliest 
manhood,  is  obscure  and   petty  for  those  who  have 
abilities  to  make  them  famous  at  Eome."      Yet  the 
other  strain  had  nothing  in  it  of  affectation  or  hypo- 
crisy :  it  was  the  schoolboy  escaped  from  work,  thor- 
oughly enjoying  his  holiday,  and  fancying  that  nothing 
w^ould  be   so   delightful  as  to  have  holidays  always. 
In  this,  again,  there  was  a  similarity  between  Cicero's 
taste  and  that  of  Horace.     The  poet  loved  his  Sabine 
farm  and  all  its  rural  delights — after  his  fashion ;  and 
perhaps  thought  honestly  that  he  loved  it  more  than 
he  really  did.     Above  all,  he  loved  to  write  about  it. 
With  that  fancy,  half-real,  perhaps,  and  half-affected, 
for  pastoral  simplicity,   wliich  has  always  marked  a 
state  of  over-luxurious  civilisation,  he  protests  to  him- 
self that  there  is  nothing  like  the  country.     But  per- 
haps Horace  discharges  a  sly  jest  at  himself,  in  a  soit 
of  aside  to  his  readers,  in  the  person  of  Al]3hius,  the 
rich  city  money-lendei",  who  is  made  to  utter  that  pretty 
apostrophe  to  rural  happiness  : — 


46  THE  CONSULSHIP  AND   CATILINE. 

"  Happy  the  man,  in  busy  scliemes  unskilled, 
Who,  living  simply,  like  our  sires  of  old, 
Tills  the  few  acres  which  his  father  tilled, 
Vexed  by  no  thoughts  of  usury  or  gold." 

Martin's  '  Horace.* 

And  who,  after  thus  expatiating  for  some  stanzas  on 
the  charms  of  the  country,  calls  in  all  his  money  one 
week  in  order  to  settle  there,  and  puts  it  all  out  again 
(no  doubt  at  higher  interest)  the  week  after,  "  0  riis, 
quando  ie  aspiciam  !  "  has  been  the  cry  of  public  men 
before  and  since  Cicero's  day,  to  whom,  as  to  the  great 
Roman,  banishment  from  political  life,  and  condemna- 
tion to  perpetual  leisure,  would  have  been  a  sentence 
that  would  have  crushed  their  very  souls. 

He  was  very  happy  at  this  time  in  his  family.  His 
Avife  and  he  loved  one  another  with  an  honest  affection; 
anything  more  would  have  been  out  of  the  natural  course 
of  things  in  Eoman  society  at  any  date,  and  even  so  much 
as  this  was  become  a  notable  exception  in  these  later 
days.  It  is  paying  a  high  honour  to  the  character  of 
Cicero  and  his  household — and  from  all  evidence  that 
has  come  down  to  us  it  may  be  paid  with  truth — that 
even  in  those  evil  times  it  might  have  presented  the  ori- 
ginal of  what  Virgil  drew  as  almost  a  fancy  picture,  or  one 
to  be  realised  only  in  some  happy  retirement  into  which 
the  civilised  vices  of  the  capital  had  never  penetrated — 

"  Where  loving  children  climb  to  reach  a  kiss — 
A  home  of  chaste  delights  and  wedded  bliss."  * 


"  Interia  dulces  pendent  circnm  oscnla  nati  ; 
Casta  pudicitiam  scrvat  domus." 

—  Georrr.  ii.  524. 


TULLIA   AND  AlARCUS.  47 

His  little  daughter,  Tullia,  or  Tulliola,  which  was  her 
pet  name  (the  Eoman  diminutives  being  formed  some- 
what more  elegantly  than  ours,  by  adding  a  syllable 
instead  of  cutting  short),  was  the  delight  of  his  heart ; 
in  his  earlier  letters  to  Atticus  he  is  constantly  making 
some  affectionate  mention  of  her — sending  her  love,  or 
some  playful  message  which  his  friend  would  under- 
stand. She  had  been  happily  married  (though  she 
was  then  but  thirteen  at  the  most)  the  year  before  his 
consulship  ;  but  the  affectionate  intercourse  between 
father  and  daughter  was  never  interrujited  until  her 
early  death.  His  only  son,  Marcus,  born  after  a  consider 
able  interval,  who  succeeded  to  TuUia's  place  as  a  house 
hold  pet,  is  made  also  occasionally  to  send  some  child- 
ish word  of  remembrance  to  his  father's  old  friend  : 
"  Cicero  the  Little  sends  his  compliments  to  Titus  the 
Athenian  " — "  Cicero  the  Philosopher  salutes  Titus  the 
Politician."*  These  messages  are  written  inGreekat  the 
end  of  the  letters.  Abeken  thinks  that  in  the  originals 
they  might  have  been  added  in  the  little  Cicero's  own 
hand,  "  to  show  that  he  had  begun  Greek  ;"  "a  conjec- 
ture," says  ]Mr  Merivale,  "  too  pleasant  not  to  be  readily 
admitted."  The  boy  gave  his  father  some  trouble  in 
after  life.  He  served  with  some  credit  as  an  officer 
of  cavalry  under  Pompey  in  Greece,  or  at  least  got 
into  no  trouble  there.  Some  years  after,  he  wished 
to  take  service  in  Spain,  under  Caesar,  against  the 
sons  of  Pompey  ;  but  tlie  father  did  not  approve  of 
this  change  of  side.       He   persuaded  him  to  go  to 

*  See  'Letters  to  Atticus/  ii.  9,  12  ;  Merivale's translation  of 
Abeken'.s  'Cicero  in  Seinen  Briefen,'  p.  114. 


48  THE  CONSULSHIP  AND   CATILINE. 

Athens  to  study  instead,  allowing  him  what  both  At- 
ticus  and  himself  thought  a  very  liberal  income — not 
sufficient,  however,  for  him  to  keep  a  horse,  which 
Cicero  held  to  be  an  unnecessary  luxury.  Probably 
the  young  cavalry  officer  might  not  have  been  of  the 
same  opinion ;  at  any  rate,  he  got  into  more  trouble 
among  the  philosophers  than  he  did  in  the  army.  He 
spent  a  great  deal  more  than  his  allowance,  and  one  of 
the  professors,  whose  lectures  he  attended,  had  the 
credit  of  helping  him  to  spend  it.  The  young  man 
must  have  shared  the  kindly  disposition  of  his  father. 
He  wrote  a  confidential  letter  to  Tiro,  the  old  family 
servant,  showing  very  good  feeling,  and  promising  re- 
formation. It  is  doubtful  how  far  the  promise  was 
kept.  He  rose,  however,  subsequently  to  place  and 
power  under  Augustus,  but  died  without  issue ;  and, 
so  far  at  least  as  history  knows  them,  the  line  of  the 
Ciceros  was  extinct.  It  had  flashed  into  fame  with 
the  great  orator,  and  died  out  with  him. 

AU  Cicero's  biographers  have  found  considerable 
difficulty  in  tracing,  at  all  satisfactorily,  the  sources  of 
the  magnificent  fortune  which  must  have  been  required 
to  keep  up,  and  to  embellish  in  accordance  with  so 
luxurious  a  taste,  so  many , residences  in  all  parts  of 
the  country.  True,  these  expenses  often  led  Cicero 
into  debt  and  difficulties  ;  but  what  he  borrowed  from 
his  friends  he  seems  always  to  have  repaid,  so  that  the 
money  must  have  come  in  from  some  quarter  or  other. 
His  patrimony  at  Arpinum  would  not  appear  to  have 
been  large  ;  he  got  only  some  £3000  or  £4000  dowry 
with  Terentia;  and   we   find   no  hint  of  his  making 


SOURCES  OF  INCOME.  49 

money  by  any  commercial  speculations,  as  some  Eoman 
gentlemen  did.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  barest 
justice  to  him  to  say  that  his  hands  were  clean  from 
those  ill-gotten  gains  which  made  the  fortunes  of  many 
of  the  wealthiest  public  men  at  Rome,  who  were  crim- 
inals in  only  a  less  degree  than  Yerres — peculation, 
extortion,  and  downright  robbery  in  the  unfortunate 
provinces  which  they  were  sent  out  to  govern.  Such 
opportunities  lay  as  ready  to  his  grasp  as  to  other 
men's,  but  he  steadily  eschewed  them.  His  declining 
the  tempting  prize  of  a  provincial  government,  which 
was  his  right  on  the  expiration  of  his  pr?etorship,  may 
fairly  be  attributed  to  his  having  in  view  the  higher 
object  of  the  consulship,  to  secure  which,  by  an  early 
and  persistent  canvass,  he  felt  it  necessary  to  remain 
in  Eome.  But  he  again  waived  the  right  when  his 
consulship  w^as  over  ;  and  when,  some  years  afterwards, 
he  went  unwillingly  as  proconsul  to  Cilicia,  his  admin- 
istration there,  as  before  in  his  lower  office  in  Sicily, 
was  marked  by  a  probity  and  honesty  quite  excep- 
tional in  a  Roman  governor.  His  emoluments,  con- 
fined strictly  within  the  legal  bounds,  would  be  only 
moderate,  and,  whatever  they  were,  came  too  late  in 
his  life  to  be  any  explanation  of  his  earlier  expenditure. 
He  received  many  valuable  legacies,  at  different  times, 
from  personal  friends  or  grateful  clients  who  died 
childless  (be  it  remembered  how"  the  barrenness  of  the 
marriage  union  had  become  then,  at  Rome,  as  it  is  said 
to  be  in  some  countries  now,  the  reproach  of  a  sensual 
and  effete  aristocracy) ;  he  boasts  himself,  in  one  of  his 
*  Philippics,'  that  he  had  received  from  this  source 
A.  c.  voL  ix.  D 


50  THE  CONSULSHIP  AND  CATILINE. 

above  £170,000.  Mr  Forsyth  also  notices  the  large 
presents  that  were  made  by  foreign  kings  and  states  to 
conciliate  the  support  and  advocacy  of  the  leading  men 
at  Borne — "we  can  hardly  call  them  bribes,  for  in 
many  cases  the  relation  of  patron  and  client  was  avow- 
edly established  between  a  foreign  state  and  some 
influential  Eoman :  and  it  became  his  duty,  as  of 
course  it  was  his  interest,  to  defend  it  in  the  Senate 
and  before  the  people."  In  this  way,  he  thinks,  Cicero 
held  "  retainers "  from  Dyrrachium ;  and,  he  might 
have  added,  from  Sicily.  The  great  orator's  own  boast 
was,  that  he  never  took  anything  for  his  services  as  an 
advocate ;  and,  indeed,  such  payments  were  forbidden 
by  law.*  But  with  all  respect  for  Cicero's  material 
honesty,  one  learns  from  his  letters,  unfortunately,  not 
to  put  implicit  confidence  in  him  when  he  is  in  a 
boasting  vein ;  and  he  might  not  look  upon  voluntary 
gifts,  after  a  cause  was  decided,  in  the  light  of  pay- 
ment. Psetus,  one  of  his  clients,  gave  him  a  valuable 
library  of  books ;  and  one  cannot  believe  that  this  was 
a  solitary  instance  of  the  quiet  evasion  of  the  Cincian 
law,  or  that  there  were  not  other  transactions  of  the 
same  nature  which  never  found  their  way  into  any 
letter  of  Cicero's  that  was  likely  to  come  down  to  us. 

*  The  principle  passed,  like  so  many  others,  from  the  old 
Roman  law  into  our  own,  so  that  to  this  very  day,  a  barrister's 
fees,  being  considered  in  the  nature  of  an  honorarium,  or  vol- 
untary present  made  to  him  for  his  services,  are  not  recoverable 
by  law. 


CHAPTER     IT. 


HIS    EXILE    AND    RETURN. 


"We  must  return  to  Rome.  Cicero  had  never  left  it 
but  for  his  short  occasional  holiday.  Though  no  longer 
in  office,  the  ex-consul  was  still  one  of  the  foremost 
public  men,  and  his  late  dignity  gave  him  important 
precedence  in  the  Senate.  He  was  soon  to  be  brought 
into  contact,  and  more  or  less  into  opposition,  with 
the  two  great  chiefs  of  parties  in  whose  feuds  he  be- 
came at  length  so  fatally  involved.  Pompey  and 
Caesar  were  both  gradually  becoming  formidable,  aiid 
both  had  ambitious  plans  of  their  own,  totally  incon- 
sistent with  any  remnant  of  republican  liberty — plans 
which  Cicero  more  or  less  suspected,  and  of  that  sus- 
picion they  were  probably  both  aware.  Both,  by  their 
successful  campaigns,  had  not  only  acquired  fame  and 
honours,  but  a  far  more  dangerous  influence  —  an 
influence  which  was  to  overwhelm  all  others  here- 
after— in  the  affection  of  their  legions.  Pompey  was 
still  absent  in  Spain,  but  soon  to  return  from  his 
long  war  against  Mithridates,  to  enjoy  the  most  splen- 
did triumph   ever    seen    at    Rome,  and  to   take  the 


52  EXILE  AND  RETURX. 

lead  of  the  oligarchical  party  just  so  long  and  so 
far  as  they  v/ould  help  him  to  the  power  he  coveted. 
The  enemies  -whom  Cicero  had  made  by  his  strong 
measures  in  the  matter  of  the  Catilinarian  conspiracy 
now  took  advantage  of  Pompey's  name  and  popularity 
to  make  an  attack  upon  him.  The  tribune  Metellus, 
constant  to  his  old  party  watchword,  moved  in  the 
Senate  that  the  successful  general,  upon  whom  all  ex- 
pectations were  centred,  should  be  recalled  to  Eome 
with  his  army  "  to  restore  the  violated  constitution." 
All  knew  against  whom  the  motion  was  aimed,  and 
what  the  violation  of  the  constitution  meant ;  it  was 
the  putting  citizens  to  death  without  a  trial.  The 
measure  was  not  passed,  though  Csesar,  jealous  of 
Cicero  even  more  than  of  Pompey,  lent  himself  to  the 
attempt. 

But  the  blow  fell  on  Cicero  at  last  from  a  very  dif- 
ferent quarter,  and  from  the  mere  private  grudge  of  a 
determined  and  unprincif)led  man.  Publius  Clodius, 
a  young  man  of  noble  family,  once  a  friend  and  sup- 
porter of  Cicero  against  Catiline,  but  who  had  already 
made  himself  notorious  for  the  most  abandoned  profli- 
gacy, was  detected,  in  a  woman's  dress,  at  the  celebra- 
tion of  the  rites  of  the  Bona  Dea — a  kind  of  religious 
freemasonry  amongst  the  Roman  ladies,  the  mysteries 
of  which  are  very  little  known,  and  probably  Avould  in 
any  case  be  best  left  without  explanation.  But  for  a 
man  to  have  been  present  at  them  was  a  sacrilege 
hitherto  unheard  of,  and  which  was  held  to  lay  the 
wliole  city  under  the  just  wrath  of  the  oflFended  god- 
dess.    The  celebration  had  been  held  in  the  house  of 


CLODIUS.  53 

Caesar,  as  praetor,  under  the  presidency  of  his  wife 
Pompeia  ;  and  it  was  said  that  the  object  of  the  young 
profligate  was  an  intrigue  with  that  lady.  The  circum- 
stances are  not  favourahle  to  the  suspicion ;  but  Caesar 
divorced  her  forthwith,  with  the  often-quoted  remark 
that  •'  Caesar's  wife  must  not  be  even  suspected."  Tor 
this  crime — unpardonable  even  in  that  corrupt  society, 
when  crimes  of  far  deeper  dye  passed  almost  unre- 
proved  —  Clodius  was,  after  some  delay,  brought  to 
public  trial.  The  defence  set  up  was  an  alihi,  and 
Cicero  came  forward  as  a  witness  to  disprove  it :  he 
liad  met  and  spoken  with  Clodius  in  Eome  that  very 
evening.  The  evidence  was  clear  enough,  but  the; 
jury  had  been  tampered  with  by  Clodius  and  his  friends ; 
liberal  bribery,  and  other  corrupting  influences  of  even 
a  more  disgraceful  kind,  had  been  successfully  brought 
to  bear  upon  the  majority  of  them,  and  he  escaped  con- 
viction by  a  few  votes.  But  he  never  forgave  the  part 
which  Cicero  had  taken  against  him;  and  from  that 
time  forth  the  latter  found  a  new,  unscrupulous,  inde- 
fatigable enemy,  of  whose  services  his  old  opponents 
gladly  availed  themselves.  Cicero  himself  for  some 
time  underrated  this  new  danger.  He  lost  no  oppor- 
tunity of  taunting  the  unconvicted  criminal  in  the  bit- 
terest terms  in  the  Senate,  and  of  exchanging  with  him 
— very  much  to  the  detriment  of  his  own  character 
and  dignity,  in  our  modern  eyes — the  coarsest  jests 
when  they  met  in  the  street.  But  the  temptation  to 
a  jest,  of  whatever  kind,  was  always  irresistible  to 
Cicero :  it  was  a  weakness  for  which  he  more  than 
once  paid  dearly,  for  they  were  remembered  against 


54  EXILE   AXD   RETURN. 

liim  when  lie  had  forgotten  them.  Meanwhile  Clodius 
— a  sort  of  milder  Catiline,  not  without  many  popular 
qualities — ^liad  got  himself  elected  tribune  ;  degrading 
himself  formally  from  his  own  order  of  nobles  for 
that  purpose,  since  the  tribune  must  be  a  man  of  the 
commons.  The  powers  of  the  office  were  formidable 
for  all  purposes  of  obstruction  and  attack;  Clodius  had 
taken  pains  to  ingratiate  himself  with  all  classes  ;  and 
the  consuls  of  the  year  were  men  of  infamous  character, 
for  whom  he  had  found  a  successful  means  of  bribery 
by  the  promise  of  getting  a  special  law  passed  to  secure 
them  the  choice  of  the  richest  provincial  governments 
— those  coveted  fields  of  plunder — of  which  they  would 
otherwise  have  had  to  take  their  chance  by  lot.  When 
all  was  ripe  for  his  revenge,  he  brought  before  the 
people  in  full  assembly  the  following  bill  of  pains  and 
penalties  : — "  Be  it  enacted,  that  whoever  has  put  to 
death  a  Roman  citizen  uncondemned  in  due  form  of 
trial,  shall  be  interdicted  from  fire  and  water."  Such 
was  the  legal  form  of  words  which  implied  banishment 
from  Eome,  outlawry,  and  social  excommunication. 
Every  man  knew  against  whom  the  motion  was  level- 
led. It  was  carried — carried  in  spite  of  the  indigna- 
tion of  all  honest  men  in  Rome,  in  spite  of  all  Cicero's 
humiliating  efforts  to  obtain  its  rejection. 

It  was  in  vain  that  he  put  on  mourning,  as  was  the 
custom  with  those  who  were  impeached  of  public 
crimes,  and  went  about  the  streets  thus  silently  im- 
ploring the  pity  of  his  fellow-citizens.  In  vain  the 
Avhole  of  his  own  equestrian  order,  and  in  fact,  as  he 
declares,  *'all  honest  men"  (it  was  his  favourite  term 


DEPARTURE  FROM  ROME.  55 

for  men  of  his  o^vn  party),  adopted  the  same  dress  to 
show  their  sympathy,  and  twenty  thousand  youths 
of  good  family — all  in  mourning — accompanied  him 
through  the  city.  The  Senate  even  met  and  passed 
a  resolution  that  their  whole  house  should  put  on 
mourning  too.  But  Gabinius,  one  of  tlie  consuls,  at 
once  called  a  public  meeting,  and  warned  the  people 
not  to  make  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  the  Senate 
was  Rome. 

In  vain,  also,  was  any  personal  appeal  which  Cicero 
could  make  to  the  only  two  men  who  might  have  had 
influence  enough  to  sway  the  popular  vote.  He  was 
ostensibly  on  good  terms  both  with  Pompey  and  Csesar; 
in  fact,  he  made  it  his  policy  so  to  be.  He  foresaw 
that  on  their  future  course  would  probably  depend 
the  fate  of  Rome,  and  he  persuaded  himself,  perhaps 
honestly,  that  he  could  make  them  "  better  citizens." 
But  he  trusted  neither ;  and  both  saw  in  him  an  ob- 
stacle to  their  own  ambition.  Caesar  now  looked  on 
coldly,  not  altogetlier  sorry  at  the  turn  which  affairs 
had  taken,  and  faiutly  suggested  that  perhaps  some 
"  milder  measure"  might  serve  to  meet  the  case.  From 
Pompey  Cicero  had  a  right  to  look  for  some  active 
support )  indeed,  such  had  been  promised  in  case  of 
need.  He  threw  himself  at  his  feet  with  prayers  and 
tears,  but  even  this  last  humiliation  was  in  vain ;  and 
he  anticipated  the  execution  of  that  disgraceful  edict 
by  a  voluntary  withdrawal  into  exile.  Piso,  one  of 
the  consuls,  had  satirically  suggested  that  thus  he 
might  "save  Rome"  a  second  time.  His  property  was 
at  once  confiscated;  his  villas  at  Tusculum  and  at  For- 


56  EXILE  AND   RETURN. 

miae  were  plundered  and  laid  waste,  the  consuls  claim- 
ing the  lion's  share  of  the  spoil;  and  Clodius,  with  his 
armed  mob,  set  fire  to  the  noble  house  on  the  Palatine, 
razed  it  to  the  ground,  and  erected  on  the  site  a  temple 
to — Liberty  ! 

Cicero  had  friends  who  strongly  urged  him  to  defy 
the  edict ;  to  remain  at  Rome,  and  call  on  all  good 
citizens  to  arm  in  his  defence.  Modern  historians  very 
generally  have  assumed  that,  if  he  could  have  made  up 
his  mind  to  such  a  course,  it  would  probably  have  been 
successful.  He  was  to  rely,  we  suppose,  upon  those 
"  twenty  thousand  Roman  youths  " — rather  a  broken 
reed  to  trust  ta  (remembering  what  those  young  gal 
lants  were),  with  Caesar  against  him,  now  at  the  head 
of  his  legions  just  outside  the  gates  of  Rome.  He  him- 
self seriously  contemplated  suicide,  and  consulted  his 
friends  as  to  the  propriety  of  such  a  step  in  the  gravest 
and  most  business-like  manner;  though,  with  our 
modern  notions  on  the  subject,  such  a  consultation  has 
more  of  tlie  ludicrous  than  the  sublime.  The  sensible 
and  practical  Atticus  convinced  him  that  such  a  solu- 
'  tion  of  his  difficulties  would  be  the  greatest  possible; 
j  mistake — a  mistake,  moreover,  which  could  never  bel 
I  rectified.  ' 

But  almost  any  course  would  have  become  him  better 
than  that  whicli  he  chose.  Had  he  remained  and  faced 
Clodius  and  his  bravos  manfully — or  had  he  turned  his 
back  upon  Rome  for  ever,  and  shaken  the  dust  off  his 
feet  against  the  ungrateful  city,  and  become  a  noble 
pensioner  upon  Atticus  at  Buthrotum — he  would  have 
died  a  greater  man.     He  wandered  from  place  to  place, 


B  EH  A  VI  OCR  AV  EXILE.  57 

sheltered  by  friends  whose  unselfish  loyalty  marks  their 
names  with  honour  in  tliat  false  and  evil  generation — 
Sica,  and  Flaccus,  and  Plancius — bemoaning  himself 
like  a  woman, — "too  blinded  with  tears  to  write," 
"  loathing  the  light  of  day."  Atticus  thought  he  was 
going  mad.  It  is  not  jDleasant  to  dwell  upon  this 
miserable  weakness  of  a  great  mind,  which  Cicero's 
most  eager  eulogists  admit,  and  which  his  detractors 
have  not  failed  to  make  the  most  of.  iSov  is  it  easy  to 
find  excuse  for  him,  but  we  will  give  him  all  the 
benefit  of  Mr  Forsytli's  defence  : — 

"  Seldom  has  misfortune  so  crushed  a  noble  spirit,  and 
never,  perhaps,  has  the  '  bitter  bread  of  banishment '  seemed 
more  bitter  to  any  one  than  to  him.  We  nmst  remember 
that  the  love  of  country  was  a  passion  with  the  ancients  to 
a  degree  which  it  is  now  difficult  to  realise,  and  exile  from 
it  even  for  a  time  was  felt  to  be  an  intolerable  evil.  The 
nearest  approach  to  such  a  feeling  was  perhaps  that  of  some 
favourite  under  an  European  monarchy,  when,  frowned 
upon  by  his  sovereign,  he  was  hurled  from  place  and  power, 
and  banished  from  ihe  court.  The  change  to  Cicero  was 
indeed  tremendous.  Not  only  was  he  an  exile  from  Eome, 
the  scene  of  all  his  hopes,  his  glories,  his  triumphs,  but  he 
was  under  the  Ijan  of  an  outlaw.  If  found  witliin  a  certain 
distance  from  the  capital,  he  must  die,  and  it  was  death  to 
any  one  to  give  him  footl  or  shelter.  His  propeity  was 
destroyed,  his  family  was  penniless,  and  the  people  whom 
he  had  so  faithfully  served  were  the  authors  of  his  ruin. 
All  this  may  be  urged  in  his  behalf,  but  still  it  would 
have  been  only  consistent  with  Roman  fortitude  to  have 
shown  tliat  he  possessed  something  of  the  spirit  of  the 
fallen  archan-^el."  * 

*  Forsyth's  Life  of  Cicoro,  p.  190. 


58  EXILE  AND   RETURN. 

His  exile  lasted  nearly  a  year  and  a  half.  Long  be- 
fore that  time  there  had  come  a  reaction  in  his  favour. 
The  new  consuls  were  well  disposed  towards  him ; 
Clodius's  insolence  had  already  disgusted  Pompey; 
Caesar  was  absent  with  his  legions  in  Gaul ;  his  own 
friends,  who  had  all  along  been  active  in  his  favour 
(though  in  his  querulous  mood  he  accused  them  of 
apathy)  took  advantage  of  the  change,  his  generous 
rival  liortensius  being  amongst  the  most  active ;  and 
all  the  frantic  violence  of  Clodius  and  his  party  served 
only  to  delay  for  a  while  the  return  which  they  could 
not  prevent.  A  motion  for  liis  recall  was  cai'ried  at 
last  by  an  immense  majority. 

Cicero  had  one  remarkable  ally  on  that  occasion. 
On  one  of  the  days  when  the  Senate  was  known  to  be 
discussing  his  recall,  the  'Andromache'  of  Ennius  was 
being  played  in  the  theatre.  The  popular  actor  .^sop, 
whose  name  lias  come  down  to  us  in  conjunction  with 
that  of  Roscius,  was  playing  the  principal  character. 
The  great  orator  had  been  his  pupil,  and  was  evidently 
regarded  by  him  as  a  personal  friend.  With  all  the 
force  of  his  consummate  art,  he  threw  into  Andro- 
mache's lament  for  her  absent  father  his  own  feelings 
for  Cicero.  The  words  in  the  part  were  strikingly  ap- 
propriate, and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  insert  a  phrase  or 
two  of  his  own  when  he  came  to  speak  of  the  man 

"  Who  with  a  constant  mind  upheld  the  state, 
Stood  oil  the  people's  side  in  perilous  times. 
Ne'er  recked  of  his  own  life,  nor  spared  himself." 

So  significant  and  emphatic  were  his  tone  and  ges- 


^SOP    THE  ACTOR.  59 

ture  as  he  addressed  himself  pointedly  to  his  Eoman 
audience,  that  they  recalled  him,  and,  amid  a  storm  cf 
plaudits,  made  him  repeat  the  passage.  He  added  to 
it  the  words — which  were  not  set  down  for  him — 

"  Best  of  all  friends  in  direst  strait  of  war  !  " 

and  the  applause  was  redoubled.  The  actor  drew 
courage  from  liis  success.  When,  as  the  play  went  on, 
he  came  to  speak  the  words — 

"  And  you — you  let  hun  live  a  banished  man —  \r 

See  him  driven  forth  and  hunted  from  your  gates !" 

he  pointed  to  the  nobles,  knights,  and  commons,  as 
they  sat  in  their  respective  seats  in  the  crowded  rows 
before  him,  his  own  voice  broke  with  grief,  and  the 
tears  even  more  than  the  applause  of  the  whole  audience 
bore  witness  alike  to  their  feelings  towards  the  exile, 
and  the  dramatic  power  of  the  actor.  "  He  pleaded 
my  cause  before  the  Eoman  people,"  says  Cicero  (for 
it  is  he  that  tells  the  story),  "  with  far  more  weight  of 
eloquence  than  I  could  have  pleaded  for  myself."* 

He  had  been  visited  with  a  remarkable  dream,  while 
staying  with  one  of  his  friends  in  Italy,  during  the 
earlier  days  of  his  exile,  which  he  now  recalled  with 
some  interest.  He  tells  us  this  story  also  himself, 
though  he  puts  it  into  the  mouth  of  another  speaker, 
in  his  dialogue  on  "  Divination."  If  few  were  so  fond 
of  introducing  personal  anecdotes  into  every  place 
where  he  could  find  room  for  them,  fewer  stiU  could 
tell  them  so  well. 

*  Defence  of  Sestins,  c.  56,  &c. 


60  EXILE  AND  RETUnX. 

"  I  had  lain  awake  a  great  part  of  the  night,  and  at 
last  towards  dawn  had  begun  to  sleep  soundly  and 
heavily.  I  had  given  orders  to  my  attendant  that, 
in  this  case,  though  we  had  to  start  that  very  morning, 
strict  silence  should  be  kept,  and  that  I  was  on  no 
account  to  be  disturbed  ;  when  about  seven  o'clock  I 
awoke,  and  told  liini  my  dream.  I  thought  I  was  w^an- 
deriiig  alone  in  some  solitary  place,  when  Caius  Marius 
appeared  to  me,  with  his  fasces  bound  with  laurel,  and 
asked  why  I  was  so  sad?  And  when  I  answered  that 
I  had  been  driven  from  my  country,  he  caught  my  hand, 
bade  me  be  of  good  cheer,  and  put  me  under  the  guid- 
ance of  his  own  lictor  to  lead  me  to  his  monument; 
there,  he  said,  I  shouid  find  my  deliverance." 

So  indeed  it  had  turned  out.  The  temple  dedicated 
to  Honour  and  Virtue,  in  which  the  Senate  sat  when 
they  passed  the  first  resolution  for  Cicero's  recall,  was 
known  as  the  *'  Monument  of  Marius."  There  is  no 
need  to  doubt  the  perfect  good  faith  of  the  story 
which  he  tells,  and  it  may  be  set  down  as  one  of  the 
earliest  authenticated  instances  of  a  dream  cominc:  true. 
But  if  dreams  are  fashioned  out  of  our  waking  imagi- 
nations, it  is  easy  to  believe  that  the  fortunes  of  his 
great  townsman  Marius,  and  the  scenes  in  the  Senate 
at  Eome,  were  continually  present  to  the  exile's 
thoughts. 

His  return  was  a  triumphal  progress.  He  landed  at 
Brundusium  on  his  daughter's  birthday.  She  had  only 
just  lost  her  husband  Piso,  who  had  gallantly  maintained 
her  father's  cause  throughout,  but  she  Avas  the  first  to 
welcome  him  with  tears  of  joy  which  overmastered  her 


RETURN  TO  ROME.  61 

sorrow.  He  was  careful  to  lose  no  chance  of  making 
his  return  impressive.  He  took  his  way  to  Rome  with 
the  slow  march  of  a  conqueror.  The  journey  which 
Horace  made  easily  in  twelve  days,  occupied  Cicero 
twenty-four.  But  he  chose  not  the  shortest  but  the 
most  public  route,  through  Naples,  Capua,  Minturnse, 
Terracina,  and  Aricia. 

Let  him  tell  the  story  of  his  own  reception.  If  he 
tells  it  (as  he  does  more  than  once)  with  an  undis- 
guised pride,  it  is  a  pride  with  wliich  it  is  impossible 
not  to  sympathise.  He  boasted  afterwards  that  he  had 
been  "carried  back  to  Eome  on  the  shoulders  of  Italy;" 
a  ad  Plutarch  says  it  was  a  boast  he  had  good  right  to 

make. 

"  Who  does  not  know  what  my  return  home  was 
likel     How  the  people  of  Brundusium  held  out  to  me, 
as  I  might  say,  the  right  hand  of  welcome  on  behalf  of 
all  my  native  land  %   From  thence  to  Eome  my  progress 
was  like  a  march  of  all  Italy.    There  was  no  district,  no 
town,  corporation,  or  colony,  from  which  a  public  de- 
putation M^as  not  sent  to  congratulate  me.     Why  need 
I  speak  of  my  arrival  at  each  place  ?  how  the  people 
crowded  the  streets  in  the  towns  ;  how  they  flocked 
in  from  the  country — fathers  of  families  Avith  wives 
and  children  ?     How  can  I  describe  those  days,  when 
all  kept  holiday,  as  though  it  were  some  high  festival 
of  the  immortal  gods,  in  joy  for  my  safe  return  ?     That 
single  day  was  to  me  like  immortality;   when  I  re- 
turned to  my  own  city,  when  I  saw  the  Senate  and 
the  population  of  all  ranks  come  forth  to  greet  me, 
when  Eome  herself  looked  as  though  she  had  wrenched 


62  EXILE  AND  RETURN. 

herself  from  her  foundations  to  rush  to  embrace  her 
preserver.  For  she  received  me  in  such  sort,  that  not 
only  all  sexes,  ages,  and  callings,  men  and  women,  of 
every  rank  and  degree,  but  even  the  very  walls,  the 
houses,  the  temples,  seemed  to  share  the  universal  joy." 

The  Senate  in  a  body  came  out  to  receive  him  on 
the  Appian  road;  a  gilded  chariot  waited  for  him  at 
the  city  gates  ;  the  lower  class  of  citizens  crowded 
the  steps  of  the  temples  to  see  him  as  he  passed;  and  so 
he  rode,  escorted  by  troops  of  friends,  more  than  a  con- 
queror, to  the  Capitol. 

His  exultation  was  naturally  as  intense  as  his  de- 
spair had  been.  He  made  two  of  his  most  florid 
speeches  (if  indeed  they  be  his,  which  is  doubtful), 
one  in  the  Senate  and  another  to  the  people  assembled 
in  the  Forum,  in  which  he  congratulated  himself  on 
his  return,  and  Kome  on  having  regained  her  most 
illustrious  citizen.  It  is  a  curious  note  of  the  temper 
and  logical  capacities  of  the  mob,  in  all  ages  of  the 
world  alike,  that  within  a  few  hours  of  their  applaud- 
ing to  the  echo  this  speech  of  Cicero's,  Clodius  suc- 
ceeded in  exciting  them  to  a  serious  riot  by  appealing 
to  the  ruinous  price,  of  corn  as  one  of  the  results  of  the 
exile's  return. 

For  nearly  four  years  more,  though  unable  to  shake 
Cicero's  recovered  position  in  the  state — for  he  was  now 
supported  by  Pompey  —  Clodius  and  his  partisans, 
backed  by  a  strong  force  of  trained  gladiators  in  their 
pay,  kept  Rome  in  a  state  of  anarchy  which  is  almost 
inexplicable.  It  was  more  than  suspected  that  Crassus, 
now  utterly  estranged  from  Pompey,  supplied  out  of 


DEATH  OF  CLOD  I  US.  63 

his  enormous  wealtli  the  means  of  keeping  on  foot  this 
lawless  agitation.  Elections  were  overawed,  meetings 
of  the  Senate  interrupted,  assassinations  threatened 
and  attempted.  Already  men  began  to  look  to  mili- 
tary rule,  and  to  think  a  good  cause  none  the  worse 
for  being  backed  by  "strong  battalions."  Things  were 
fast  tending  to  the  i)oint  where  Pompey  and  Ccesar, 
trusty  allies  as  yet  in  profession  and  appearance,  deadly 
rivals  at  heart,  hoped  to  step  in  with  their  veteran  le- 
gions. Even  Cicero,  the  man  of  peace  and  constitution- 
al statesman,  felt  comfort  in  the  thought  that  this  final 
argument  could  be  resorted  to  by  his  own  party.  Eut 
Clodius's  mob-government,  at  any  rate,  w^as  to  be  put 
an  end  to  somewhat  suddenly.  Milo,  now  one  of  the 
candidates  for  the  consulship,  a  man  of  determined  and 
unscrupulous  character,  had  turned  his  own  weapons 
against  him,  and  maintained  an  opposition  patrol  of 
hired  gladiators  and  wild-beast  fighters.  The  Senate 
quite  approved,  if  they  did  not  openly  sanction,  this 
irregular  championship  of  their  order.  The  two  par- 
ties walked  the  streets  of  Eome  like  the  Capulets  and 
Montagues  at  Yerona ;  and  it  was  said  that  Milo  had 
been  heard  to  swear  that  he  would  rid  the  city  of 
Clodius  if  he  ever  got  the  chance.  It  came  at  last,  in  a 
casual  meeting  on  the  Appian  road,  near  Bovillae.  A 
scuffle  began  between  their  retainers,  and  Clodius  was 
killed — his  friends  said,  murdered.  The  excitement  at 
Rome  was  intense :  the  dead  body  was  carried  and  laid 
publicly  on  the  Eostra.  Eiots  ensued;  Milo  was  obliged 
to  fly,  and  renounce  his  hopes  of  power ;  and  the  Senate, 
intimidated,  named  Pompey — not  indeed  ''Dictator," 


64  EXILE  AND  RETURN. 

for  the  name  had  become  almost  as  hateful  as  that  of 
King — but  sole  consul,  for  the  safety  of  the  state. 

Cicero  had  resumed  his  practice  as  an  advocate,  and 
was  now  called  upon  to  defend  Milo.  But  Pompey, 
either  from  some  private  grudge,  or  in  order  to  win 
favour  with  the  populace,  determined  that  Milo  should 
he  convicted.  The  jury  were  overawed  by  his  presence 
in  person  at  the  trial,  and  by  the  occupation  by  armed 
soldiers  of  all  the  avenues  of  the  court  under  colour  of 
keeping  order.  It  was  really  as  great  an  outrage  upon 
the  free  administration  of  justice  as  the  jiresence  of  a 
regiment  of  soldiers  at  the  entrance  to  Westminster 
Hall  would  be  at  a  modern  trial  for  high  treason  or 
sedition.  Cicero  affected  to  see  in  Pompey's  legionaries 
nothing  more  than  the  maintainors  of  the  peace  of  the 
city.  But  he  knew  better  ;  and  the  fine  passage  in  the 
opening  of  his  speech  for  the  defence,  as  it  has  come 
down  to  us,  is  at  once  a  magnificent  piece  of  irony,  and 
a  vindication  of  the  rights  of  counsel. 

"Although  I  am  conscious,  gentlemen,  that  it  is  a 
disgrace  to  me  to  show  fear  when  I  stand  here  to  plead 
in  behalf  of  one  of  the  bravest  of  men ; — and  espe- 
cially does  such  weakness  ill  become  me,  that  when 
Milo  himself  is  far  more  anxious  about  the  safety  of 
the  state  than  about  his  own,  I  should  be  unable  to 
bring  to  his  defence  the  like  magnanimous  spirit; — 
yet  this  strange  scene  and  strangely  constituted  court 
does  terrify  my  eyes,  for,  turn  them  Avhere  I  will,  I 
look  in  vain  for  the  ancient  customs  of  the  Forum, 
and  the  old  style  of  public  trials.  For  your  tribunal 
to-day  is  girt  with  no  such  audience  as  was  wont ;  thip 


DEFENCE  OF  MILO,  65 

is  no  ordinary  crowd  that  hems  us  in.  Yon  guards 
whom  you  see  on  duty  in  front  of  all  the  temples, 
though  set  to  prevent  violence,  yet  still  do  a  sort  of 
violence  to  the  pleader ;  since  in  the  Forum  and  the 
couj-t  of  justice,  though  the  military  force  which  sur- 
rounds us  be  wholesome  and  needful,  yet  we  cannot 
even  be  thus  freed  from  apprehension  without  looking 
with  some  apprehension  on  the  means.  And  if  1 
thought  tliey  were  set  there  in  hostile  array  against 
I\Iilo,  I  would  yield  to  circumstances,  gentlemen,  an<l 
feel  there  was  no  room  for  the  pleader  amidst  such 
a  display  of  weapons.  But  T  am  encouraged  by  the 
advice  of  a  man  of  great  wisdom  and  justice — of 
Pompey,  who  surely  would  not  think  it  compatible 
with  that  justice,  after  committing  a  prisoner  to  the 
verdict  of  a  jury,  then  to  hand  him  over  to  the  swords 
of  his  soldiers ;  nor  consonant  with  his  wisdom  to 
arm  the  violent  passions  of  a  mob  with  the  authority 
of  the  state.  Therefore  those  weapons,  those  officers 
and  men,  proclaim  to  us  not  peril  but  protection  ;  they 
encourage  us  to  be  not  only  undisturbed  but  confident ; 
they  promise  me  not  only  support  in  pleading  for 
the  defence,  but  silence  for  it  to  be  listened  to.  As 
to  the  rest  of  the  audience,  so  far  as  it  is  composed 
of  peaceful  citizens,  all,  I  know,  are  on  our  side; 
nor  is  there  any  single  man  among  all  those  crowds 
whom  you  see  occupying  every  point  from  which  a 
glimpse  of  this  court  can  be  gained,  looking  on  in 
anxious  expectation  of  the  result  of  this  trial,  who, 
wliile  he  approves  the  boldness  of  the  defendant, 
does  not  also  feel  that  the  fate  of  himself,  his  chil- 
A.  (J.  vol.  ix.  E 


66  EXILE  AND  RETURN. 

dren,  and  his  country,  hangs  upon  the  issue  of  to- 
day." 

After  an  elaborate  argument  to  prove  that  the  slay- 
ing of  Clodius  by  Milo  was  in  self-defence,  or,  at  the 
worst,  that  it  was  a  fate  which  he  well  deserved  as  a 
public  enemy,  he  closes  his  speech  with  a  peroration, 
the  pathos  of  which  has  always  been  admired  : — 

"  I  would  it  had  been  the  will  of  heaven — if  I  may 
say  so  with  all  reverence  for  my  country,  for  I  fear  lest 
my  duty  to  my  client  may  make  me  say  what  is  dis- 
loyal towards  her — I  would  tliat  Publius  Clodius  were 
not  only  alive,  but  that  he  were  praetor,  consul,  dic- 
tator even,  before  my  eyes  had  seen  this  sight !  But 
what  says  Milo  %  He  speaks  like  a  brave  man,  and  a 
man  whom  it  is  your  duty  to  protect — '  Not  so — by 
no  means,'  says  he.  '  Clodius  has  met  the  doom  he 
well  deserved  :  I  am  ready,  if  it  must  be  so,  to  meet 
that  which  I  do  not  deserve.'  .  .  .  But  I  must 
stop ;  I  can  no  longer  speak  for  tears  ;  and  tears  are 
an  argument  which  he  Avould  scorn  for  his  defence.  I 
entreat  you,  I  adjure  you,  ye  who  sit  here  in  judg- 
ment, that  in  your  verdict  you  dare  to  give  utterance 
to  what  I  know  you  feel." 

But  the  appeal  Avas  in  vain,  or  rather,  as  far  as  we  can 
ascertain,  was  never  made, — at  least  in  such  powerful 
terms  as  those  in  which  we  read  it.  The  great  advo- 
cate was  wholly  unmanned  by  the  scene  before  him, 
grew  nervous,  and  broke  down  utterly  in  his  speech 
for  the  defence.  This  presence  of  a  military  force 
under  the  orders  of  Ponipey- — the  man  in  whom  he 
saw,  as  he  hoped,  the  good  genius  of  Rome — overawed 


GOVERNMENT  OF  CI  LI  CI  A.  67 

and  disturbed  him.  The  speech  wliieh  we  read  is 
almost  certainly  not  that  which  he  delivered,  but,  as 
in  the  previous  case  of  Yerres,  the  finished  and  elabo- 
rate composition  of  his  calmer  hours.  Milo  was  con- 
victed by  a  large  majority  ;  in  fact,  tliere  can  be  little 
doubt  but  that  he  was  legally  guilty,  however  political 
expediency  might,  in  the  eyes  of  Cicero  and  Ms  party, 
have  justified  his  deed.  Cato  sat  on  the  jury,  and  did 
all  he  could  to  insure  an  acquittal,  showing  openly  his 
voting-paper  to  his  fellow-jurors,  with  that  scorn  of  the 
"  liberty  of  silence  "  which  he  shared  with  Cicero. 

Milo  escaped  any  worse  penalty  by  at  once  going 
into  voluntary  banishment  at  Martseiiles; —  But  he 
showed  more  practical  philosophy  than  his  advocate; 
for  when  he  read  the  speech  in  his  exile,  he  is  said  to 
have  declared  that  "  it  was  fortunate  for  him  it  was 
not  spoken,  or  he  should  never  have  known  the  flavour 
of  the  red  mullet  of  Marseilles." 

The  removal  of  Clodius  was  a  deliverance  upon 
Avhich  Cicero  never  ceased  to  congTatulate  himself. 
That  "battle  of  Bovillae,"  as  he  terms  it,  became  an  era 
in  his  mental  records  of  only  less  significance  than  his 
consulship.  His  own  public  life  continued  to  be  hon- 
ourable and  successful.  He  was  elected  into  the  Col- 
lege of  Augurs,  an  honour  which  he  had  long  coveted  ; 
and  he  was  appointed  to  the  government  of  Cilicia. 
This  latter  was  a  greatness  literally  "  thrust  upon 
him,"  and  which  he  would  gladly  have  declined,  for  it 
took  him  away  in  these  eventful  days  from  his  beloved 
Eome ;  and  to  these  grand  opportunities  for  enriching 
himself  he  was,  as  has  been  said,  honoural  ly  indiffe- 


68  EXILE  AND  RETURX. 

rent.  The  appointment  to  a  distant  province  was,  in 
fact,  to  a  man  like  Cicero,  little  better  than  an  honour- 
able form  of  exile :  it  was  like  conferring  on  a  man 
who  had  been,  and  might  hope  one  day  to  be  again, 
Prime  Minister  of  England,  the  governor-generalship 
of  Bombay. 

One  consolation  he  found  on  reaching  his  new  govern- 
ment— that  even  in  the  farthest  wilds  of  Cilicia  there 
were  people  who  had  heard  of  "  the  consul  who  saved 
Eome."  And  again  the  astonished  provincials  marvelled 
at  a  governor  who  looked  upon  them  as  having  rights  of 
their  own,  and  neither  robbed  nor  ill-used  them.  He 
made  a  little  war,  too,  upon  some  troublesome  hill-tribes 
(intrusting  the  command  chiefly  to  his  brother  Quintus, 
who  had  served  with  distinction  under  Caesar  in  Gaul), 
and  gained  a  victory  which  his  legions  thought  of  suffi- 
cient importance  to  salute  him  with  the  honoured  title 
of  "  imperator."  Such  military  honours  are  especially 
flattering  to  men  who,  like  Cicero,  are  naturally  and 
essentially  civilians  ;  and  to  Cicero's  vanity  they  were 
doubly  delightful.  Unluckily  they  led  him  to  entertain 
hopes  of  the  further  glory  of  a  triumph;  and  this,  but 
for  the  revolution  which  followed,  he  might  possibly 
have  obtained.  As  it  was,  the  only  result  was  his 
parading  about  with  him  everywhere,  from  town  to 
town,  for  months  after  his  return,  the  lictors  with 
laurelled  fasces,  which  betokened  that  a  triumph  was 
claimed — a  pompous  incumbrance,  which  became,  as 
he  confessed,  a  grand  subject  for  evil-disposed  jesters, 
and  a  considerable  inconvenience  to  himself. 


CHAPTER     Y. 

CICERO    AXD    C^SAR. 

The  future  master  of  Eome  was  now  coming  home, 
after  nearly  ten  years'  absence,  at  the  head  of  the  victo- 
rious legions  with  which  lie  had  struck  terror  into  the 
Germans,  overrun  all  Spain,  left  his  mark  upon  Britain, 
and  "  pacified"  Gaul.  But  Cicero,  in  common  with  most 
of  the  senatorial  party,  failed  to  see  in  Julius  Csesar  the 
great  man  that  he  was.  He  hesitated  a  little — Ccesar 
would  gladly  have  had  his  support,  and  made  him  fair 
offers ;  but  when  the  Rubicon  was  crossed,  he  threw  in  his 
lot  with  Pompey.  He  was  certainly  influenced  in  part 
by  personal  attachment :  Pompey  seems  to  have  exer- 
cised a  degree  of  fascination  over  his  weakness.  He 
knew  Pompey's  indecision  of  character,  and  confessed 
that  Coesar  was  "a  prodigy  of  energy;"  but  though 
the  former  showed  little  liking  for  him,  he  clung  to 
him  nevertheless.  He  foreboded  that,  let  the  contest 
end  which  way  it  would,  "  the  result  would  certainly 
be  a  despotism."  He  foresaw  that  Pompey's  real 
designs  were  as  dangerous  to  the  liberties  of  Rome  as 
any  of  which  Ct^sar  could  be  suspected.     "  Sullaiimt 


70  CICERO  AND  CJiSAR. 

cmwius,^*  he  says  of  him  in  one  of  his  letters,  coining 
a  verb  to  put  his  idea  strongly — "he  wants  to  be  lil<e 
Sulla."  And  it  was  no  more  than  the  truth.  He 
found  out  afterwards,  as  he  tells  Atticus,  that  pro- 
scription-lists of  all  C?esar's  adherents  had  been  pre- 
pared by  Pompey  and  his  partisans,  and  that  his  old 
friend's  name  figured  as  one  of  the  victims.  Only  this 
makes  it  possible  to  forgive  him  f(  r  the  little  feeling 
that  he  showed  Avhen  he  heard  of  Pompey's  own 
miserable  end. 

Cicero's  conduct  and  motives  at  this  eventful  crisis 
have  been  discussed  over  and  over  again.  It  may  be 
questioned  whether  at  this  date  we  are  in  any  position 
to  pass  more  than  a  very  cautious  and  general  judg- 
ment upon  them.  "We  want  all  the  "state  papers" 
and  political  correspondence  of  the  day — not  Cicero's 
letters  only,  but  those  of  C«3sar  and  Pompey  and  Len- 
tulus,  and  much  information  besides  that  was  never 
trusted  to  pen  or  paper  —  in  order  to  lay  down 
with  any  accuracy  the  course  which  a  really  unselfish 
patriot  could  have  taken.  But  there  seems  little 
reason  to  accuse  Cicero  of  double-dealing  or  trimming 
in  the  worst  sense.  His  policy  was  unquestionably, 
from  first  to  last,  a  policy  of  expedients.  But  exj^e- 
diency  is,  and  must  be  more  or  less,  the  watchword  of 
a  statesman.  If  he  would  practically  serve  his  country, 
he  must  do  to  some  extent  what  Cicero  professed  to 
do — make  friends  with  those  in  power.  "  Sic  vwihw  " 
— "  So  goes  the  world ; "  "  TempoH  serviendum  est " — 
"  We  must  bend  to  circumstances  " — these  are  not  the 
noblest  mottoes,  but  they  are  acted  upon  continually 


PHARSALIA.  71 

by  the  most  respectable  men  in  public  and  private  life, 
who  do  not  open  their  hearts  to  their  friends  so  un- 
reservedly as  Cicero  does  to  his  friend  Atticus.  It 
seemed  to  him  a  choice  between  Pompey  and  Caesar  ; 
and  he  probably  hoped  to  be  able  so  far  to  influence 
the  former,  as  to  preserve  some  shadow  of  a  constitu- 
tion for  Eome.  What  he  saw  in  those  "  dregs  of  a 
Republic,"*  as  he  himself  calls  it,  tliat  was  worth  pre- 
serving ; — how  any  honest  des2:)otism  could  seem  to  him 
more  to  be  dreaded  than  that  prostituted  liberty, — this 
is  harder  to  comprehend.  The  remark  of  Abeken 
seems  to  go  very  near  the  truth — "His  devotion  to 
the  commonwealth  Wiis  grounded  not  so  much  upon 
his  conviction  of  its  actual  merits,  as  of  its  fitness  for 
the  display  of  his  own  abilities." 

But  that  commonwealth  was  past  saving  even  in 
name.  Within  two  months  of  his  having  been  de- 
clared a  public  enemy,  all  Italy  was  at  Caesar's  feet. 
Before  another  year  was  past,  the  battle  of  Pharsaliii 
had  been  fought,  and  the  great  Pompey  lay  a  headless 
corpse  on  the  sea-shore  in  Egypt.  It  was  suggested 
to  Cicero,  who  had  hitherto  remained  constant  to  the 
fortunes  of  his  party,  and  was  then  in  their  camp  at 
Dyrrachium,  that  he  should  take  the  chief  command, 
but  he  had  the  sense  to  decline ;  and  though  men 
called  him  "traitor,"  and  drew  their  swords  upon  him, 
he  withdrew  from  a  cause  which  he  saw  was  lost,  and 
returned  to  Italy,  though  not  to  Rome. 

The  meeting  between  him  and  Caesar,  which  came 
at  last,  set  at  rest  any  personal  apprehensions  from  that 
*  ^'FffiK  Eomiili." 


72      .  .  OICERO  AND  CESAR. 

quarter. '"'Gfeero' does  not  ap[)ear  to  have  made  any 
dishonourable  submission,  and  the  conqueror's  beha- 
viour was  nobly  forgetful  of  the  past.  They  gradually 
became  on  almost  friendly  terms.  The  orator  paid  the 
Dictator  compliments  in  the  Senate,  and  found  that, 
in  private  society,  his  favourite  jokes  were  repeated  to 
the  great  man,  and  were  highly  appreciated.  With 
such  little  successes  he  was  obliged  now  to  be  content. 
He  had  again  taken  up  his  residence  in  Rome  ;  but  his 
political  occupation  was  gone,  and  his  active  mind  had 
leisure  to  employ  itself  in  some  of  his  literary  works. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  blow  fell  upon  him 
which  prostrated  him  for  the  time,  as  his  exile  had 
done,  and  under  which  he  claims  our  far  more  natural 
sympathy.  His  dear  daughter  Tullia — again  married, 
but  unhappily,  and  just  divorced — died  at  his  Tusculan 
villa.  Their  loving  intercourse  had  undergone  no 
change  from  her  childhood,  and  his  grief  was  for  a 
while  inconsolable.  He  shut  himself  up  for  thirty 
days.  The  letters  of  condolence  from  well-meaning 
friends  were  to  him — as  they  so  often  are — as  the 
speeches  of  the  three  comforters  to  Job.  He  turned 
in  vain,  as  he  pathetically  says,  to  philosophy  for 
consolation. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  he  wrote  two  of  his  philo- 
sophical treatises,  known  to  us  as  '  The  True  Ends  of 
Life,'  *  and  the  '  Tusculan  Disputations,'  of  whic? 
more  will  be  said  hereafter.  In  this  latter,  which  he 
named  from  his  favourite  country-house,  he  addressed 
himself  to  the  subjects  which  suited  best  with  his  own 

•  *  De  Finibus  Bonoruin  et  ^lalorum  ' — a  title  hard  to  translate. 


DEATH  OF 

sorrowful  mood  under  his  recent  he??5^5reS?r''^ow 
men  might  learn  to  shake  off  the  terrors  of  death — nay, 
to  look  upon  it  rather  as  a  release  from  pain  and  evil ; 
how  pain,  mental  and  bodily,  may  best  be  borne  ;  how 
we  may  moderate  our  passions  ;  and,  lastly,  whether  the 
practice  of  virtue  be  not  all-sufficient  for  our  happiness. 

A  philosopher  does  not  always  find  in  himself  a 
ready  pupil.  It  was  hardly  so  in  Cicero's  case.  His 
arguments  were  incontrovertible  ;  but  he  found  them 
fail  him  sadly  in  their  practical  application  to  life. 
He  never  could  shake  off  from  himself  that  dread  of 
death  which  he  felt  in  a  degree  unusually  vivid  for  a 
Eoman.  He  sought  his  own  happiness  afterwards,  as 
he  had  done  before,  rather  in  the  exciting  struf^^le  of 
public  life  than  in  the  special  cultivation  of  any  form 
of  virtue ;  and  he  did  not  even  find  the  remedy  for 
his  present  domestic  sorrow  in  any  of  those  general 
moral  reflections  which  philosophy,  Christian  as  well 
as  pagan,  is  so  ready  to  produce  upon  such  occasions ; 
which  are  all  so  undeniable,  and  all  so  utterly  unen- 
durable to  the  mourner. 

Cicero  found  his  consolation,  or  that  diversion  of 
thought  which  so  mercifully  serves  the  purpose  of  con- 
solation, where  most  men  of  active  minds  like  his 
seek  for  it  and  find  it — in  hard  work.  The  literary 
effort  of  writing  and  completing  the  works  which  have 
been  just  mentioned  probably  did  more  to  soothe  his 
mind  than  all  the  arguments  which  they  contained. 
He  resumed  his  practice  as  an  advocate  so  far  as  to 
plead  a  cause  before  Caesar,  now  ruling  as  Dictator  at 
Rome — the  last  cause,  as  events  happened,  that  he  was 


74  CICERO  AND   C.^SAR. 

ever  to  plead.  It  was  a  cause  of  no  great  importance 
— a  defence  of  Deiotarus,  titulary  king  of  Armenia, 
who  was  accused  of  having  entertained  designs  against 
the  life  of  Caesar  while  entertaining  him  as  a  guest  in 
his  palace.  The  Dictator  reserved  his  judgment  until 
he  should  have  made  his  campaign  against  the  Par- 
thians.  That  more  convenient  season  never  came  :  for 
before  the  spring  campaign  could  open,  the  fatal  "  Ides 
of  March  "  cut  short  Caesar's  triumphs  and  his  life. 


CHAPTEE  VI. 


CICERO     AND    ANTONY, 


It  remained  for  Cicero  yet  to  take  a  part  in  one 
more  great  national  struggle — the  last  for  Kome  and 
for  himself.  Xo  doubt  there  was  some  grandeur  in 
the  cause  which  he  once  more  so  vigorously  espoused 
— the  recovery  of  the  liberties  of  Rome.  But  all  the 
thunders  of  Cicero's  eloquence,  and  all  the  admiration 
of  modern  historians  and  poets,  fail  to  enHst  our  hearty 
sympathies  with  the  assassins  of  Caesar.  That  "  con- 
secration of  the  dagger"  to  the  cause  of  liberty  has 
been  the  fruitful  parent  of  too  much  evil  ever  since  to 
make  its  use  anything  but  hateful.  That  Cicero  was 
among  the  actual  conspirators  is  probably  not  true, 
though  his  enemies  strongly  asserted  it.  But  at  least 
he  gloried  in  the  deed  when  done,  and  was  eager  to 
claim  all  the  honours  of  a  tyrannicide.  Xay,  he  Avent 
farther  than  the  actual  conspirators,  in  words  at  least ; 
it  is  curious  to  find  him  so  careful  to  disclaim  com- 
plicity in  the  act.  "  Would  that  you  had  invited  me  to 
that  banquet  on  the  Ides  of  March  !  there  would  then 
have  been  no  leavings  from  the  feast,"- — he  writes  to 


re  CICERO  AND  ANTONY. 

Cassiiis.  He  would  liave  had  their  daggers  turned  on 
Antony,  at  all  events,  as  well  as  on  Csesar.  He  wislies 
that  "  the  gods  may  damn  Caesar  after  he  is  dead  ;" 
professing  on  this  occasion  a  belief  in  a  future  retribu- 
tion, on  which  at  other  times  he  was  sceptical.  It  is 
but  right  to  remember  all  this,  when  the  popular  tide 
turned,  and  he  himself  came  to  be  denounced  to  polit- 
ical vengeance.  /The  levity  with  which  he  continually 
speaks  of  the  assassination  of  Caesar — a  man  who  had 
never  treated  him,  at  any  rate,  with  anything  but  a 
noble  forbearance  —  is  a  blot  on  Cicero's  character 
which  his  warmest  apologists  admit. 

The  bloody  deed  in  the  Capitol  was  done — a  deed 
which  was  to  turn  out  almost  wliat  Goethe  called  it — 
"  the  most  absurd  that  ever  was  committed."  The 
great  Dictator  who  lay  there  alone,  a  "  bleeding  piece 
of  earth,"  deserted  by  the  very  men  who  had  sought  of 
late  to  crown  him,  was  perhaps  Eome's  fittest  master ; 
certainly  not  the  worst  of  the  many  with  whom  a  per- 
sonal ambition  took  the  place  of  princif>le.  Three 
slaves  took  up  the  dead  body  of  their  master,  and 
carried  it  home  to  his  house.  Poor  wretches  !  they 
knew  nothing  about  liberty  or  the  constitution ;  they 
had  little  to  hope,  and  probably  little  to  fear ;  they 
had  only  a  humble  duty  to  do,  and  did  it.  But  when 
we  read  of  them,  and  of  that  freednian  who,  not  long 
before,  sat  by  the  dead  body  of  Pompey  till  he  could 
scrape  together  wreck  from  the  shore  to  light  some  sort 
of  poor  funeral-pile,  we  return  with  a  shudder  of  dis- 
gust to  those  "  noble  Romans "  who  occupy  at  this 
time  tlie  foreground  of  history. 


CICERO    WITUDRA  WS  FROM  ROME.  77 

Caesar  had  been  removed,  but  it  is  plain  that  Brutus 
and  Cassius  and  their  party  had  neither  the  ability 
nor  the  energy  to  make  any  real  use  of  their  bloody 
triumph.  Cicero  soon  lost  all  hope  of  seeing  in  them 
the  liberators  of  his  countr}^,  or  of  being  able  to  guide 
himself  the  revolution  which  he  hoped  he  had  seen 
begun.  "  We  have  been  freed,"  he  writes  to  Atticus, 
"  but  we  are  not  free."  "  We  have  struck  down  the 
tyrant,  but  the  tyranny  survives."  Antony,  in  fact,  had 
taken  the  place  of  Cajsar  as  master  of  Eome — a  change 
in  all  respects  for  the  worse.  He  had  surrounded 
himself  with  guards ;  had  obtained  authority  from  the 
Senate  to  carry  out  all  decrees  and  orders  left  by  the 
late  Dictator ;  and  when  he  could  not  find,  amongst 
Caesar's  memoranda,  materials  to  serve  his  purpose,  he 
did  not  hesitate  to  forge  them.  Cicero  had  no  power, 
and  might  be  in  personal  danger,  for  Antony  knew  his 
sentiments  as  to  state  matters  generally,  and  more  par- 
ticularly towards  himself.  Rome  was  no  longer  any 
place  for  him,  and  he  soon  left  it — this  time  a  volun- 
tary exile.  He  wandered  from  place  to  place,  and 
^ried  as  before  to  find  interest  and  consolation  in  phil- 
osophy. It  was  now  that  he  wrote  his  charming 
essays  on  '  Friendship '  and  on  '  Old  A^q^^  and  com- 
pleted his  work  '  On  the  Xature  of  the  Gods,'  and 
that  on  '  Divination.'  His  treatise  '  De  Officiis '  (a 
kind  of  pagan  'Whole  Duty  of  Man')  is  also  of  this 
date,  as  well  as  some  smaller  philosophical  works  which 
have  been  lost.  He  professed  himself  hopeless  of  his 
country's  future,  and  disgusted  with  political  life,  nnd 
spoke  of  going  to  end  liis  days  at  Athens. 


y 


78  CICERO  AND  ANTONY. 

But,  as  before  and  ahvays,  his  heart  was  in  the 
Forum  at  Eonie.  Political  life  was  really  the  only 
atmosphere  in  which  he  felt  himself  breathe  vigor- 
ously. Unquestionably  he  had  also  an  earnest  patriot- 
ism, which  would  have  drawn  him  back  to  his  country's 
side  at  any  time  when  he  believed  that  she  had  need 
of  his  help.  He  was  told  that  he  was  needed  there 
now  ;  that  there  was  a  prospect  of  matters  going  better 
for  the  cause  of  liberty  ;  that  Antony  was  coming 
to  terms  of  some  kind  with  the  party  of  Brutus, — and 
he  returned. 

For  a  short  while  these  latter  days  brought  with 
them  a  gleam  of  triumph  almost  as  bright  as  that 
which  had  marked  the  overthrow  of  Catiline's  con- 
spiracy. Again,  on  his  arrival  at  Eome,  crowds  rushed 
to  meet  him  with  compliments  and  congratulations,  as 
they  had  done  some  thirteen  years  before.  And  in 
so  far  as  his  last  days  were  spent  in  resisting  to  the 
utmost  the  basest  of  all  Rome's  bad  men,  they  were  to 
him  greater  than  any  triumph.  Thenceforth  it  was 
a  fight  to  the  death  between  him  and  Antony  ;  so  long 
as  Antony  lived,  there  could  be  no  liberty  fo"  Eome. 
Cicero  left  it  to  his  enemy  to  make  the  fir^t  attack. 
It  soon  came.  Two  days  after  his  return,  Antony 
spoke  vehemently  in  the  Senate  against  him,  on  the 
occasion  of  moving  a  resolution  to  the  effect  that 
divine  honours  should  be  paid  to  Caesar.  Cicero  had 
purposely  stayed  away,  pleading  fatigue  after  his 
journey ;  really,  because  such  a  proposition  was  odious 
to  him.  Antony  denounced  him  as  a  coward  and  a 
traitor,  and  threatened  to  send  men  to  pull  down  his 


THE  FIRST  PHILIPPIC.  79 

house  about  his  head — that  house  which  had  once 
before  been  pulled  down,  and  rebuilt  for  him  by  his 
remorseful  fellow-citizens.  Cicero  went  down  to  the 
Senate  the  following  day,  and  there  delivered  a  well- 
prepared  speech,  the  first  of  those  fourteen  which  are 
known  to  us  as  his  '  Philippics ' — a  name  which  he 
seems  first  to  have  given  to  them  in  jest,  in  remem- 
brance of  those  w^hich  his  favourite  model  Demosthenes 
had  delivered  at  Athens  against  Philip  of  Macedon. 
He  defended  his  own  conduct,  reviewed  in  strong  but 
moderate  terms  the  w^hole  policy  of  Antony,  and 
warned  him — still  ostensibly  as  a  friend — against  the 
fate  of  Caesar.  The  speaker  was  not  unconscious  what 
his  own  might  possibly  be. 

"  I  have  already,  senators,  reaped  fruit  enough  from 
my  return  home,  in  that  I  have  had  the  opportunity 
to  sjDeak  words  which,  whatever  may  betide,  will  re- 
main in  evidence  of  my  constancy  in  my  duty,  and 
you  have  listened  to  me  with  much  kindness  and 
attention.  And  this  privilege  I  will  use  so  often  as  I 
may  without  peril  to  you  and  to  myself;  when  I  can- 
not, I  will  be  careful  of  myself,  not  so  much  for  my 
own  sake  as  for  the  sake  of  my  country.  For  me,  the 
life  that  I  have  lived  seems  already  wellnigh  long 
enough,  whether  I  look  at  my  years  or  my  honours  ; 
what  little  span  may  yet  be  added  to  it  should  be  your 
gain  and  the  state's  far  more  than  my  own." 

Antony  was  not  in  the  house  when  Cicero  spoke  ; 
he  had  gone  down  to  his  villa  at  Tibur.  There  he 
remained  for  a  fortnight,  brooding  over  his  rejjly — 
taking  lessons,  it  was  said,  from  professors  in  the  art 


80  CICERO  AND  ANTONY. 

of  rhetorical  self-defence.  At  last  he  came  to  Kome, 
and  answered  his  opponent.  His  speech  has  not 
reached  us  ;  but  we  know  that  it  contained  the  old 
charges  of  having  put  Eoman  citizens  to  death  without 
trial  in  the  case  of  the  abettors  of  Catiline,  and  of 
having  instigated  Milo  to  the  assassination  of  Clodius. 
Antony  added  a  new  charge — that  of  complicity  with 
the  murderers  of  Caesar.  Above  all,  he  laughed  at 
Cicero's  old  attempts  as  a  poet  ;  a  mode  of  attack 
which,  if  not  so  alarming,  was  at  least  as  irritating  as 
the  rest.  Cicero  was  not  present — ho  dreaded  per- 
sonal violence  ;  for  Antony,  like  Pompey  at  the  trial 
of  Milo,  had  planted  an  armed  guard  of  his  own  men 
outside  and  inside  the  Senate-house.  Before  Cicero 
had  nerved  himself  to  reply,  Antony  had  left  Rome 
to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  his  legions,  and  the  two 
never  met  again. 

The  reply,  when  it  came,  was  the  terrible  second 
Philippic  ;  never  spoken,  however,  but  only  handed 
about  in  manuscript  to  admiring  friends.  There  is 
little  doubt,  as  Mr  Long  observes,  that  Antony  had 
also  some  friend  kind  enough  to  send  him  a  copy  ;  and 
if  we  may  trust  the  Eoman  poet  Juvenal,  who  is  at 
least  as  likely  to  have  been  well  informed  upon  the 
subject  as  any  modern  historian,  this  composition 
eventually  cost  the  orator  his  life.  It  is  not  difficult 
to  understand  the  bitter  vindictiveness  of  Antony, 
Cicero  had  been  not  merely  a  political  opponent ;  he 
had  attacked  his  ])rivate  character  (which  presented 
al)undant  grounds  for  such  attack)  with  all  the  venom 
of  his  eloquence.     He  had  said,  indeed,  in  the  first  of 


THE  SECOND  PHILIPPIC.  §1 

these  powerful  orations,  that  he  had  never  taken  this 
line. 

"  If  I  have  abused  his  private  life  and  character,  I 
have  no  right  to  complain  if  he  is  my  enemy :  but  if  T 
have  only  followed  my  usual  custom,  which  I  have 
ever  maintained  in  public  life, — I  mean,  if  I  have  only 
spoken  my  opinion  on  public  questions  freely, — then, 
in  the  first  place,  I  protest  against  his  being  angry 
with  me  at  all :  or,  if  this  be  too  much  to  expect,  I 
demand  that  he  should  be  angry  with  me  only  as  with 
a  fellow-citizen.*' 

If  there  had  been  any  sort  of  reticence  on  this  point 
hitherto  on  the  part  of  Cicero,  he  made  up  for  it  in 
this  second  speech.  Nothing  can  equal  its  bitter 
personality,  except  perhaps  its  rhetorical  power.  He 
begins  the  attack  by  declaring  that  he  Avill  not  tell  all 
he  knows — "in  order  that,  if  we  have  to  do  battle 
again  hereafter,  I  may  come  always  fresh-armed  to  the 
attack ;  an  advantage  which  the  multiplicity  of  that 
man's  crimes  and  vices  gives  me  in  large  measure." 
Then  he  proceeds  : — 

"  Would  you  like  us,  then,  to  examine  into  your 
course  of  life  from  boyhood  ?  I  conclude  you  would. 
Do  you  remember  that  before  you  put  on  the  robe  of 
manhood,  you  were  a  bankrupt?  That  w^as  my  father's 
fault,  you  will  say.  I  grant  it — it  is  a  defence  that 
speaks  volumes  for  your  feelings  as  a  son.  It  was 
your  own  shamelessness,  however,  that  made  you  take 
your  seat  in  the  stalls  of  honourable  knights,  whereas 
by  law  there  is  a  fixed  place  for  bankrupts,  even  when 
they  have  become  so  by  fortune's  fault,  and  not  their 

A.  c.  vol.  ix.  F 


52  CICERO  AND  ANTONY. 

(jwn.  You  put  on  the  robe  which  was  to  mark  your 
manhood,  —  on  your  person  it  became  the  flaunting 
gear  of  a  harlot." 

It  is  not  desirable  to  follow  the  orator  through 
some  of  his  accusations  ;  when  he  had  to  lash  a  man 
whom  he  held  to  be  a  criminal,  he  did  not  much  care 
where  or  how  he  struck.  He  even  breaks  off  himself — 
after  saying  a  good  deal. 

"  There  are  some  things,  which  even  a  decent  enemy 
hesitates  to  speak  of.  .  .  .  Mark,  then,  his  subse- 
quent course  of  life,  which  I  will  trace  as  rapidly  as  I 
can.  For  though  these  things  are  better  known  to 
you  than  even  to  me,  yet  I  ask  you  to  hear  me  with 
attention — as  indeed  you  do ;  for  it  is  right  that  in 
such  cases  men's  feelings  should  be  roused  not  merely 
by  the  knowledge  of  the  facts,  but  by  calling  them 
back  to  their  remembrance ;  though  we  must  dash  at 
once,  I  believe,  into  the  middle  of  his  history,  lest  we 
should  be  too  long  in  getting  to  the  end." 

The  peroration  is  noble  and  dignified,  in  the  orator's 
best  style.  He  still  supposes  himself  addressing  his 
enemy.  He  has  warned  Antony  that  Caesar's  fate 
may  be  his  :  and  he  is  not  unconscious  of  the  peril  in 
which  his  own  life  may  stand. 

"  But  do  you  look  to  yourself — T  will  tell  you  how 
it  stands  with  me.  I  defended  the  Commonwealth 
when  I  was  young — I  will  not  desert  it  now  I  am  old. 
I  despised  the  swords  of  Catiline — I  am  not  likely  to 
tremble  before  yours.  Nay,  I  shall  lay  my  life  down 
gladly,  if  the  liberty  of  Rome  can  be  secured  by  my 
death,  so  that  this  suffering  nation  may  at  last  bring  to 


THE  SIXTH  PHILIPPIC.  83 

the  birth  that  which  it  has  long  been  breeding.*  If, 
twenty  years  ago,  I  declared  in  this  house  that  death 
could  never  be  said  to  have  come  before  its  time  to 
a  man  who  had  been  consul  of  Eonie,  with  how  much 
more  truth,  at  my  age,  may  I  say  it  now  !  To  me 
indeed,  gentlemen  of  the  Senate,  death  may  well  be  a 
thing  to  be  even  desired,  when  I  have  done  what  I  have 
done  and  reaped  the  honours  I  have  reaped.  Only 
two  wishes  I  have,— the  one,  that  at  my  death  I  may 
leave  the  Eoman  people  free— the  immortal  gods  can 
give  me  no  greater  boon  than  this  ;  the  other,  that 
every  citizen  may  meet  with  such  reward  as  his  con- 
duct towards  the  state  may  have  deserved." 

The  publication  of  this  unspoken  speech  raised  for 
the  time  an  enthusiasm  against  Antony,  whom  Cicero 
now  openly  declared  to  be  an  enemy  to  the  state.  He 
hurled  against  him  Philippic  after  Philippic.  The 
appeal  at  the  end  of  that  which  comes  the  sixth  in 
order  is  eloquent  enough. 

"The  time  is  come  at  last,  fellow- citizens;  some- 
what too  late,  indeed,  for  the  dignity  of  the  people  of 
Eome,  but  at  least  the  crisis  is  so  ripe,  that  it  cannot 
now  be  deferred  an  instant  longer.  We  have  had  one 
calamity  sent  upon  us,  as  I  may  say,  by  fate,  which 
we  bore  with— in  such  sort  as  it  might  be  borne.  If 
another  befalls  us  now,  it  will  be  one  of  our  own 
choosing.  That  this  Eoman  people  should  serve  any 
master,  when  the  gods  above  have  willed  us  to  be  the 
masters  of  the  world,  is  a  crime  in  the  sight  of  heaven. 
The  question  hangs  now  on  its  last  issue.  The  struggle 
*  J.g.,  the  making  away  with  Antony. 


84  CICERO  AND  ANTONY. 

is  for  our  liberties.  You  must  either  conquer, 
Komans,  —  and  this,  assuredly,  with  such  patriotism 
and  such  unanimity  as  I  see  here,  you  must  do, — or 
you  must  endure  anything  and  everything  rather  than 
be  slaves.  Other  nations  may  endure  the  yoke  of 
slavery,  but  the  birthright  of  the  people  of  Eome  is 
liberty." 

Antony  had  left  Eome,  and  thrown  himself,  like 
Catiline,  into  the  arms  of  his  soldiers,  in  his  province 
of  Cisalpine  Gaul.  There  he  maintained  himself  in 
defiance  of  the  Senate,  who  at  last,  urged  by  Cicero, 
declared  him  a  public  enemy.  Csesar  Octavianus  (great- 
nephew  of  Julius)  offered  his  services  to  the  state,  and 
with  some  hesitation  they  were  accepted.  The  last 
struggle  was  begun.  Intelligence  soon  arrived  that  An- 
tony had  been  defeated  at  Mutina  by  the  two  last  con- 
suls of  the  Republic,  Hirtius  and  Pansa.  The  news  was 
dashed,  indeed,  afterwards  by  the  further  announce- 
ment that  both  consuls  had  died  of  their  wounds. 
But  it  was  in  the  height  of  the  first  exultation  that 
Cicero  aiklressed  to  the  Senate  his  fourteenth  Philippic 
— the  last  oration  which  he  was  ever  to  make.  For 
the  moment,  he  found  himself  once  more  the  fore- 
most man  at  Rome.  Crowds  of  roaring  patriots  had 
surrounded  his  house  that  morning,  escorted  him  in 
triumph  up  to  the  Capitol,  and  back  to  his  own  house, 
as  they  had  done  in  the  days  of  his  early  glory. 
Young  Cajsar,  who  had  ])aid  him  much  personal 
deference,  was  professing  himself  a  patriot ;  the  Com- 
monwealth was  safe  again — and  Cicero  almost  thought 
that  he  asain  himself  had  saved  it. 


TEE  TRIUMVIRATE.  85 

But  Rome  now  belonged  to  those  who  had  the 
legions.  It  had  come  to  that :  and  when  Antony 
succeeded  in  joining  interests  with  Octavianus  (after- 
wards miscalled  Augustus)— "the  boy,"  as  both  Cicero 
and  Antony  called  him — a  boy  in  years  as  yet,  but 
premature  in  craft  and  falsehood — who  had  come  "  to 
claim  his  inheritance,"  and  succeeded  in  rousing  in  the 
old  veterans  of  his  uncle  the  desire  to  take  vengeance 
on  his  murderers,  the  fate  of  the  Eepublic  and  of 
Cicero  was  sealed. 

It  was  on  a  little  eyot  formed  by  the  river  Eeno, 
near  Bologna,  that  Antony,  young  Csesar,  and  Lepidus 
(the  nominal  third  in  what  is  known  as  the  Second 
Triumvirate)   met  to  arrange  among   themselves  the 
division  of  power,  and  what  they  held  to  be  necessary 
to  the  securing  it  for  tlie  future  —  the  proscription 
of  their  several  enemies.      ISTo  private  affections  or 
interests  were  to  be  allowed   to  interfere  with  this 
merciless  arrangement.     If  Lepidus  would  give  up  his 
brother,  Antony  would  surrender  an  obnoxious  uncle. 
Octavianus  made  a  cheaper  sacrifice  in  Cicero,  whom 
Antony,  we  may  be  sure,  with  those  terrible  Philip- 
pics ringing  in  his  ears,  demanded  with  an  eager  ven- 
geance.    All  was  soon  amicably  settled  ;  the  proscrip- 
tion-lists were  made  out,  and  the  Triumvirate  occupied 
Rome. 

Cicero  and  his  brother — whose  name  was  known  to 
be  also  on  the  fatal  roll— heard  of  it  while  they  were 
tof^ether  at  the  Tusculan  villa.  Both  took  immediate 
measures  to  escape.  But  Quintus  had  to  return  to 
Rome  to  get  money  for  their  flight,  and,  as  it  would 


86  CICERO   AND   ANTONY. 

appear,  to  fetch  his  son.  The  emissaries  of  the  Trium- 
virate were  sent  to  search  the  house  :  the  father  had 
hid  himself,  but  the  son  was  seized,  and  refusing  to 
give  any  information,  was  put  to  tlie  torture.  His 
father  heard  his  cries  of  agony,  came  forth  from  his 
hiding-place,  and  asked  only  to  he  put  to  death  first. 
The  son  in  his  turn  made  the  same  request,  and  the 
assassins  were  so  far  merciful  that  they  killed  both  at 
once. 

Cicero  himself  might  yet  have  escaped,  but  for  some- 
thing of  his  old  indecision.  He  had  gone  on  board  a 
small  vessel  with  the  intention  of  joining  Brutus  in 
Macedonia,  when  he  suddenly  changed  his  mind,  and 
insisted  on  being  put  on  shore  again.  He  wandered 
about,  half-resolving  (for  the  third  time)  on  suicide. 
He  would  go  to  Eome,  stab  himself  on  the  altar-hearth 
in  young  Caesar's  house,  and  call  down  the  vengeance 
of  heaven  upon  the  traitor.  The  accounts  of  these  last 
hours  of  his  life  are,  unfortunately,  somewhat  con- 
tradictory, and  none  of  the  authorities  to  be  entirely 
depended  on ;  Abeken  has  made  a  careful  attempt 
to  harmonise  them,  which  it  will  be  best  here  to 
follow. 

Urged  by  the  prayers  of  his  slaves,  the  faithful 
adherents  of  a  kind  master,  he  once  more  embarked, 
and  once  more  (Appian  says,  from  sea-sickness,  which 
he  never  could  endure)  landed  near  Caieta,  where  he 
had  a  seaside  villa.  Either  there,  or,  as  other  accounts 
say,  at  his  house  at  Formiae,  he  laid  himself  down  to 
pass  the  night,  and  wait  for  death.  "  Let  me  die," 
said  he,  "  in  my  own  country,  which  I  have  so  often 


DEATH  OF   CICERO.  87 

saved."  But  again  the  faithful  slaAcs  aroused  him, 
forced  him  into  a  litter,  and  hurried  him  down  through 
the  woods  to  the  sea-shore — for  the  assassins  were  in 
hot  pursuit  of  him.  They  found  his  house  shut  up  ; 
but  some  traitor  showed  them  a  short  cut  by  which 
to  overtake  the  fugitive.  As  he  lay  reading  (it  is  said), 
even  during  these  anxious  moments,  a  play  of  his 
favourite  Euripides,  every  line  of  whom  he  used  to 
declare  contained  some  maxim  worth  remember- 
ing, he  heard  their  steps  approaching,  and  ordered 
the  litter  to  be  set  down.  He  looked  out,  and  re- 
cognised at  the  head  of  the  party  an  officer  named 
J,<aeiiag^  wbom  he  had  once  successfully  defended  on 
a  capital  charge ;  but  he  saw  no  gratitude  or  mercy 
in  the  face,  though  there  were  others  of  the  baud 
who  covered  their  eyes  for  pity,  when  they  saw  the 
dishevelled  grey  hair  and  pale  worn  features  of  the 
great  Eoman  (he  was  within  a  month  of  sixty-four). 
He  turned  from  Lsenas  to  the  centurion,  one  Heren- 
nius,  and  said,  "  Strike,  old  soldier,  if  you  understand 
your  trade  !"  At  the  third  blow — by  one  or  other  of 
those  officers,  for  both  claimed  the  evil  honour — his 
head  was  severed.  They  carried  it  straight  to  Antony, 
where  he  sat  on  the  seat  of  justice  in  the  Forum,  and 
demanded  the  offered  reward.  The  triumvir,  in  his 
joy,  paid  it  some  ten  times  over.  He  sent  the  bloody 
trophy  to  his  wife ;  and  tlie  Eoman  Jezebel  spat  in  the 
dead  face,  and  ran  her  bodkin  through  the  tongue 
which  had  spoken  those  bold  and  bitter  truths  against 
her  false  husband.  The  great  orator  fulfilled,  almost 
in  the  very  letter,  the  Avords  which,  treating  of  the 


88  CICERO  AND  ANTONY. 

liberty  of  the  pleader,  he  had  put  into  the  month  of 
Crassus — "  You  must  cut  out  this  tongue,  if  you  would 
check  my  free  speech :  nay,  even  then,  my  very  breath- 
ing should  protest  against  your  lust  for  power."  The 
head,  by  Antony's  order,  was  then  nailed  upon  the 
Rostra,  to  speak  there,  more  eloquently  than  ever 
the  living  lips  had  spoken,  of  the  dead  liberty  of 
Rom& 


CHAPTER    YII. 

CII.VRACTER    AS    A    POLITICIAN    AND    AN    ORATOR. 

Cicero  shared  very  largely  in  the  feeling  which  is 
common  to  all  men  of  amhition  and  energy,— a  desire 
to  stand  well  not  only  with  their  own  generation,  hut 
with  posterity.     It  is  a  feeling  natural  to  every  man 
who  knows  that  his  name  and  acts  must  necessarily 
hecome  historical.     If  it  is  more  than  usually  patent 
in  Cicero's  case,  it  is  only  because  in  his  letters  to 
Atticus  we  have  more  than  usual  access  to  the  inmost 
heart  of  the  writer  ;  for  surely  such  a  thoroughly  con- 
fidential correspondence  has  never  been  published  be- 
fore or  since.      "What  will  history  say   of  me  six 
hundred  years  hence  T'  he  asks,  unbosoming  himself 
in  this  sort  to  his  friend.     More  than  thrice  the  six 
hundred  years  have  passed,  and,  in  Cicero's  case,  his- 
tory has  hardly  yet  made  up  its  mind.     He  has  been 
lauded  and  abused,  from  his  own  times  down  to  the 
present,  in  terms  as  extravagant  as  are  to  be  found  in 
the  most  passionate  of  his   own  orations;   both  his 
accusers  and  his  champions  have  caught  the  trick  of 
his  rhetorical  exaggeration  more  easily  than  his  elo- 


90  CHARACTER  AS  A    POLITICIAN. 

quence.  Modern  German  critics  like  Drumann  and 
Mommsen  have  attacked  him  with  hardly  less  bitter- 
ness, though  with  more  decency,  than  the  historian 
Dio  Cassius,  who  lived  so  near  his  own  times.  Bishop 
Middleton,  on  the  other  hand,  in  those  pleasant  and 
comprehensive  volumes  which  are  still  to  this  day  the 
great  storehouse  of  materials  for  Cicero's  biography, 
is  as  blind  to  his  faults  as  though  he  were  himself  de- 
livering a  panegyric  in  tlie  Eostra  at  Rome.  Perhaps 
it  is  the  partiality  of  the  learned  bishop's  view  which 
has  produced  a  reaction  in  the  minds  of  sceptical 
German  scholars,  and  of  some  modern  writers  of  our 
own.  It  is  impossible  not  to  sympathise  in  some 
degree  with  that  Athenian  who  Avas  tired  of  always 
hearing  Aristides  extolled  as  "  the  Just ; "  and  there 
was  certainly  a  strong  temptation  to  critics  to  pick 
holes  in  a  man's  character  who  was  perpetually,  during 
his  lifetime  and  for  eighteen  centuries  after  his  death, 
having  a  trumpet  sounded  before  him  to  announce 
him  as  the  prince  of  patriots  as  well  as  philosophers  ; 
worthy  indeed,  as  Erasmus  thought,  to  be  canonised 
as  a  saint  of  the  Catholic  Church,  but  for  the  single 
drawback  of  his  not  having  been  a  Christian. 

On  one  point  some  of  his  eulogists  seem  manifestly 
unfair.  They  say  that  the  circumstances  under  which 
we  form  our  judgment  of  the  man  are  exceptional  in 
this — that  we  happen  to  possess  in  his  case  all  this 
mass  of  private  and  confidential  letters  (there  are 
nearly  eight  hundred  of  his  own  which  have  come 
down  to  us),  giving  us  an  insight  into  his  private 
motives,  his  secret  jealousies,  and  hopes,  and  fears,  and 


CHARACTER  AS  A    POL  I  TIC! AY.  91 

ambitions,  of  which  in  the  case  of  other  men  we  have 
no  such  revelation.  It  is  quite  true  ;  but  his  advocates 
forget  that  it  is  from  the  very  same  pages  which  reveal 
his  weaknesses,  that  the}^  draw  their  real  knowledge  of 
many  of  those  characteristics  which  they  most  admire — 
his  sincere  love  for  his  country,  his  kindness  of  heart, 
his  amiability  in  all  his  domestic  relations.  It  is  true 
tliat  we  cannot  look  into  the  private  letters  of  Caesar, 
or  Pompey,  or  Brutus,  as  we  can  into  Cicero's  ;  but  it  is 
not  so  certain  that  if  we  coidd,  our  estimate  of  their 
characters  would  be  lowered.  We  might  discover,  in 
their  cases  as  in  his,  many  traces  of  what  seems  insin- 
cerity, timidity,  a  desire  to  sail  witli  tlie  stream ;  we 
might  find  that  the  views  which  they  expressed  in 
public  were  not  always  those  which  they  entertained 
in  private ;  but  we  might  also  find  an  inner  current  of 
kindness,  and  benevolence,  and  tenderness  of  heart,  for 
which  the  world  gives  them  little  credit.  One  enthu- 
siastic advocate,  Wieland,  goes  so  far  as  to  wish  that 
this  kind  of  evidence  could,  in  the  case  of  such  a 
man  as  Cicero,  have  been  "  cooked,"  to  use  a  modern 
phrase  :  that  we  could  have  had  only  a  judicious  selec- 
tion from  this  too  truthful  mass  of  correspondence ; 
that  his  secretary.  Tiro,  or  some  judicious  friend,  had 
destroyed  the  whole  packet  of  letters  in  which  the 
great  Roman  bemoaned  himself,  during  his  exile  from 
Rome,  to  his  wife,  to  his  brother,  and  to  Atticus.  The 
partisan  method  of  writing  history,  though  often  prac- 
tised, has  seldom  been  so  boldly  professed. 

But  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  if  we  know  too  much 
of  Cicero  to  judge  him  merely  by  his  public  life,  as  we 


92  CHARACTER  AS  A    POLITICIAN. 

are  obliged  to  do  with  so  many  heroes  of  history,  we 
also  know  far  too  little  of  those  stormy  times  in  which 
he  lived,  to  pronounce  too  strongly  upon  his  behaviour 
in  such  difficult  circumstances.  The  true  relations 
between  the  various  parties  at  Rome,  as  we  have  tried 
to  sketch  them,  are  confessedly  puzzling  even  to  the 
careful  student.  And  without  a  thorough  understand- 
ing of  these,  it  is  impossible  to  decide,  with  any  hope 
of  fairness,  upon  Cicero's  conduct  as  a  patriot  and  a 
politician.  His  character  was  full  of  conflicting  ele- 
ments, like  the  times  in  which  he  lived,  and  was 
necessarily  in  a  great  degree  moulded  by  them.  The 
egotism  which  shows  itself  so  plainly  alike  in  his 
public  speeches  and  in  his  private  writings,  more  than 
once  made  him  personal  enemies,  and  brought  him 
into  trouble,  though  it  was  combined  with  great  kind- 
ness of  heart  and  consideration  for  others.  He  saw 
the  right  clearly,  and  desired  to  follow  it,  but  his  good 
intentions  were  too  often  frustrated  by  a  want  of  firm- 
ness and  decision.  His  desire  to  keep  well  with  men 
of  all  parties,  so  long  as  it  seemed  possible  (and  this 
not  so  much  from  the  desire  of  self-aggrandisement,  as 
from  a  hope  through  their  aid  to  serve  the  common- 
wealth) laid  him  open  on  more  than  one  occasion  to 
the  charge  of  insincerity. 

There  is  one  comprehensive  quality  which  may  be 
said  to  have  been  wanting  in  his  nature,  which  clouded 
his  many  excellences,  led  him  continually  into  false 
positions,  and  even  in  his  delightful  letters  excites  in 
the  reader,  from  time  to  time,  an  impatient  feeling  of 
contempt.      He  wanted  manliness.      It  was  a  quality 


CHARACTER  AS  A   POLITICIAN.  93 

which  was  fast  dying  out,  in  his  day,  among  even  the 
best  of  the  luxurious  and  corrupt  aristocracy  of  Rome. 
It  was  perliaps  but  little  missed  in  his  character  hy 
those  of  his  contemporaries  who  knew  and  loved  him 
best.  But  without  that  quality,  to  an  English  mind, 
it  is  hard  to  recognise  in  any  man,  however  brilliant 
and  amiable,  the  true  philosopher  or  hero. 

The  views  which  this  great  Roman  politician  held 
upon  the  vexed  question  of  the  ballot  did  not  differ 
materially  from  those  of  his  worthy  grandfather  before- 
mentioned.*  The  ballot  was  popular  at  Rome, — for 
many  reasons,  some  of  them  not  the  most  creditable 
to  the  characters  of  the  voters ;  and  because  it  Avas 
popular,  Cicero  speaks  of  it  occasionally,  in  his  forensic 
speeches,  with  a  cautious  praise  ;  but  of  his  real  esti- 
mate of  it  there  can  be  no  kind  of  doubt.  "  I  am 
of  the  same  opinion  now,"  he  writes  to  his  brother, 
"  that  ever  I  was ;  there  is  nothing  like  the  open 
suffrage  of  the  lips."  So  in  one  of  his  speeches,  he 
uses  even  stronger  language  :  ''  The  ballot,"  he  says, 
"  enables  men  to  open  their  faces,  and  to  cover  up 
their  thoughts ;  it  gives  them  licence  to  promise  what- 
ever they  are  asked,  and  at  the  same  time  to  do  what- 
ever they  please."  Mr  Grote  once  quoted  a  phrase  of 
Cicero's,  applied  to  the  voting-papers  of  his  day,  as  a 
testimony  in  favour  of  this  mode  of  secret  suffrage — 
grand  words,  and  wholly  untranslatable  into  anything 
like  corresponding  English  —  "  Tahella,  vinclex  tacitce 
Uhertatis" — "  the  tablet  wliich  secures  the  liberty  of 
silence."    But  knowing  so  well  as  Cicero  did  what  was 

*  See  p.  3. 


94     CHARACTER  AS  POLITICIAN  AND  ORATOR. 

the  ordinary  character  of  Eoman  jurors  and  Eoman 
voters,  and  how  often  this  "liberty  of  silence"  was  a 
liberty  to  take  a  bribe  and  to  vote  the  other  way,  one 
can  almost  fancy  that  we  see  upon  his  lips,  as  he  utters 
the  sounding  phrase,  that  playful  curve  of  irony  which 
is  said  to  have  been  their  characteristic  expression.* 
Mr  Grote  forgot,  too,  as  was  well  pointed  out  by  a 
writer  in  the  '  Quarterly  Review,'  t  that  in  the  very 
next  sentence  the  orator  is  proud  to  boast  that  he 
himself  was  not  so  elected  to  office,  but  "by  the  living 
voices"  of  his  fellow-citizens. 

The  character  of  his  eloquence  may  be  understood 
in  some  degree  by  tlie  few  extracts  which  have  been 
given  from  his  public  speeches ;  always  remembering 
how  many  of  its  charms  are  necessarily  lost  by  losing 
the  actual  language  in  which  his  thoughts  were  clothed. 
We  have  lost  perhaps  nearly  as  much  in  another  way, 
in  that  we  can  only  read  the  great  orator  instead  of 
listening  to  him.  Yet  it  is  j^ossible,  after  all,  that 
tliis  loss  to  us  is  not  so  great  as  it  might  seem.  Some 
of  his  best  speeches,  as  Ave  know — those,  for  instance, 
against  Verres  and  in  defence  of  Milo — were  written 
in  the  closet,  and  never  spoken  at  all ;  and  most  of  the 
others  were  reshaped  and  polished  for  publication, 
^or  is  it  certain  that  his  declamation,  which  some  of 
his  Roman  rivals  found  fault  with  as  savourinc:  too 
much  of  the  florid  Oriental  type,  would  have  been  agree- 

*  No  Lust,  coin,  or  gem  is  known  which  bears  any  genuine 
likeness  of  Cicero.  There  are  several  existing  which  purport  to 
be  such,  but  all  are  more  or  less  apocryphal. 

t  Quart.  Rev.,  Ixi.  522. 


HIS  ORATORY.  95 

able  to  our  colder  English  taste.  He  looked  upon  gesture 
and  action  as  essential  elements  of  the  orator's  power, 
and  had  studied  them  carefully  from  the  artists  of  the 
theatre.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  we  have  his  own 
views  on  this  point  in  the  words  which  he  has  put 
into  the  mouth  of  his  "  Brutus,"  in  the  treatise  on 
oratory  which  bears  that  name.  He  protests  against  the 
"Attic  coldness"  of  style  which,  he  says,  would  soon 
empty  the  benches  of  their  occupants.  He  would 
have,  the  action  and  bearing  of  the  speaker  to  be  such 
that  even  the  distant  spectator,  too  far  off  to  hear, 
should  "know  that  there  was  a  Roscius  on  the  staire." 
He  would  have  found  a  French  audience  in  this  re- 
spect more  sympathetic  than  an  English  one.*  His 
own  highly  nervous  temperament  would  certainly  tend 
to  excited  action.  The  speaker,  who,  as  we  are  told, 
"  shuddered  visibly  over  his  whole  body  when  he  first 
began  to  speak,"  was  almost  sure,  as  he  warmed  to  his 
work,  to  throw  himself  into  it  with  a  passionate 
energy. 

He  has  put  on  record  his  own  ideas  of  the  qualifica- 
tions and  the  duties  of  the  public  speaker,  whether  in 
the  Senate  or  at  the  bar,  in  three  continuous  treatises 

*  Our  speakers  certainly  fall  into  the  other  extreme.  The 
British  orator's  style  of  gesticulation  may  still  be  recognised, 
mutatis  mutandis,  in  Addison's  humorous  sketch  of  a  century 
ago  :  "You  may  see  many  a  smart  rhetorician  turning  his  hat 
in  his  hands,  moulding  it  into  several  different  cocks,  examin- 
ing sometimes  the  lining  and  sometimes  the  button,  during  the 
whole  course  of  his  harangue.  A  deaf  man  would  think  that  he 
was  cheapening  a  beaver,  when  he  is  talking  perhaps  of  the 
fate  of  the  British  nation." 


93     CHARACTER  AS  POLITICIAN  AND   ORATOR. 

on  the  subject,  entitled  respectively,  '  On  Oratory,' 
'  Brutus,'  and  '  The  Orator,'  as  well  as  in  some  other 
works  of  which  we  have  only  fragments  remaining. 
With  the  first  of  these  works,  whicli  he  inscribed  to 
his  brother,  he  was  himself  exceedingly  well  satisfied, 
and  it  perhaps  remains  still  the  ablest,  as  it  was  the 
first,  attempt  to  reduce  eloquence  to  a  science.  The 
second  is  a  critical  sketch  of  the  great  orators  of  Eome : 
and  in  the  third  we  have  Cicero's  view  of  what  the 
perfect  orator  should  be.  His  ideal  is  a  high  one,  and 
a  true  one  ;  that  he  should  not  be  the  mere  rhetorician, 
any  more  than  the  mere  technical  lawyer  or  keen 
partisan,  but  the  man  of  perfect  education  and  perfect 
taste,  who  can  speak  on  all  subjects,  out  of  the  fulness 
of  his  mind,  "  with  variety  and  copiousness." 

Although,  as  has  been  already  said,  he  appears  to 
have  attached  but  little  value  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
technicalities  of  law,  in  other  respects  his  preparation 
for  his  work  was  of  the  most  careful  kind ;  if  we 
may  assume,  as  we  probably  may,  that  it  is  his  own 
experience  which,  in  his  treatise  on  Oratory,  he  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  Marcus  Antonius,  one  of  his  greatest 
predecessors  at  the  Roman  bar. 

"  It  is  my  habit  to  have  every  client  explain  to  me 
personally  his  own  case ;  to  allow  no  one  else  to  be 
present,  that  so  he  may  speak  more  freely.  Then  I 
take  the  opponent's  side,  while  I  make  him  plead  liis 
own  cause,  and  bring  forward  whatever  arguments  he 
can  think  of.  Then,  when  he  is  gone,  I  take  upon 
myself,  with  as  much  impartiality  as  I  can,  three  dif- 
ferent characters — my  own,  my  opponent's,  and  that  of 


RULES  FOR   THE  PLEADER.  97 

the  jury.  Whatever  point  seems  likely  to  help  the 
case  rather  than  injure  it,  this  I  decide  must  be  brought 
forward  ;  when  I  see  that  anything  is  likely  to  do 
more  harm  than  good,  I  reject  and  throw  it  aside  alto- 
gether. So  I  gain  this, — that  I  think  over  first  what 
I  mean  to  say,  and  speak  afterwards  ;  while  a  good 
many  pleaders,  relying  on  their  abilities,  try  to  do 
both  at  once."* 

He  reads  a  useful  lesson  to  young  and  zealous  advo- 
cates in  the  same  treatise — that  sometimes  it  may  be 
wise  not  to  touch  at  all  in  reply  upon  a  point  which 
makes  against  your  client,  and  to  which  you  have  no 
real  answer;  and  that  it  is  even  more  important  to 
say  nothing  which  may  injure  your  case,  than  to  omit 
something  which  might  possilily  serve  it.  A  maxim 
which  some  modern  barristers  (and  some  preachers 
also)  might  do  well  to  bear  in  mind. 

Yet  he  did  not  scorn  to  use  what  may  almost  be  called 
the  tricks  of  his  art,  if  he  thought  tliey  would  help  to 
secure  him  a  verdict.  The  outward  and  visible  appeal 
to  the  feelings  seems  to  have  been  as  effective  in  the 
Roman  forum  as  with  a  British  jury.  Cicero  would 
have  his  client  stand  by  his  side  dressed  in  mourn- 
ing, with  hair  dishevelled,  and  in  tears,  when  he 
meant  to  make  a  pathetic  appeal  to  the  compassion  of 
the  jurors ;  or  a  family  group  would  be  arranged,  as 
circumstances  allowed, — the  wife  and  children,  the 
mother  and  sisters,  or  the  aged  father,  if  present- 
able, would  be  introduced  in  open  court  to  create 
a  sensation  at  the  right  moment.  He  had  tears  ap- 
*  De  Oratore,  II.  24,  72. 

iu  C.  voi.  ix.  O 


98     CHARACTER  AS  POLITICIAN  AND   ORATOR. 

parently  as  ready  at  his  command  as  an  eloquent 
and  well-known  English  Attorney-General.  Nay,  the 
tears  seem  to  have  been  marked  down,  as  it  were,  upon 
his  brief.  "  My  feelings  prevent  my  saying  more,"  he 
declares  in  his  defence  of  Publius  Sylla.  "  I  weep 
yhile  I  make  the  appeal " — "  I  cannot  go  on  for  tears  " 
— he  repeats  towards  the  close  of  that  fine  oration  in 
behalf  of  Milo — the  speech  that  never  was  spoken. 
Such  phrases  remind  us  of  the  story  told  of  a  French 
preacher,  whose  manuscripts  were  found  to  have  mar- 
ginal stage  directions  :  "  Here  take  out  your  handker- 
chief ;" — "  here  cry — if  possible."  But  such  were  hfeld 
to  be  the  legitimate  adjuncts  of  Roman  oratory,  and  it 
is  quite  possible  to  conceive  that  the  advocate,  like 
more  than  one  modern  tragedian  who  could  be  named, 
entered  so  thoroughly  into  the  spirit  of  the  part  that 
the  tears  flowed  quite  naturally. 

A  far  less  legitimate  weapon  of  oratory — offensive 
and  not  defensive — was  the  bitter  and  coarse  person- 
ality in  which  he  so  frequently  indulged.  Its  use  was 
held  perfectly  lawful  in  the  Roman  forum,  whether  in 
political  debate  or  in  judicial  j^leadings,  and  it  was 
sure  to  be  highly  relished  by  a  mixed  nudience.  There 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Cicero  had  recourse  to  it 
in  any  unusual  degree ;  but  employ  it  he  did,  and 
most  unscrupulously.  It  was  not  only  jjrivate  cliarac- 
ter  that  he  attacked,  as  in  the  case  of  Antony  and 
Clodius,  but  even  personal  defects  or  peculiarities  were 
made  the  subject  of  bitter  ridicule.  He  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  season  his  harangue  by  a  sarcasm  on  the  cast 
in  the  prosecutor's  eye,  or  the  wen  on  the  defendant's 
neck,  and  to  direct  the  attention  of  the  court  to  these 


U.'SE  OF  PERSONALITIES.  99 

points,  as  though  they  were  corroborative  evidence  of 
a  moral  deformity.  The  most  conspicuous  instance 
of  this  practice  of  his  is  in  the  invective  which  he 
launched  in  the  Senate  against  Piso,  who  had  made  a 
speech  reflecting  upon  him.  Referring  to  Cicero's  exile, 
he  had  made  that  sore  subject  doubly  sore  by  declaring' 
that  it  was  not  Cicero's  unpopularity,  so  much  as  his 
unfortunate  propensity  to  bad  verse,  which  had  been  tlie 
cause  of  it.     A  jingling  line  of  his  to  the  effect  that 

"  The  gown  wins  grander  triumphs  than  the  sword  "  * 

had  been  thought  to  be  pointed  against  the  recent 
victories  of  Pompey,  and  to  have  provoked  him  to  use 
his  influence  to  get  rid  of  the  author.     But  this  an- 
notation of  Cicero's  poetry  had  not  been  Piso's  only 
offence.     He  had  been  consul  at  the  time  of  the  exile, 
and  had  given  vent,  it  may  be   remembered,  to   the 
witticism  that  the  "saviour  of  Eome"  might  save  the 
city  a  second  time  by  his  absence.     Cicero  was  not 
the  man  to  forget  it.     The  beginning  of  his  attack 
on  Piso  is  lost,  but  there  is  quite  enough  remaining, 
Piso  was  of  a  swarthy  complexion,  approaching  pro- 
bably to  the  negro   type.      "  Beast " — is  the  term  by 
which   Cicero   addresses   him.      "  Beast !    there  is  no 
mistaking  the  evidence  of  that  slave-like  hue,  those 
bristly  cheeks,   those   discoloured   fangs.     Your  eyes, 
your  brows,  your  face,  your  whole  aspect,  are  the  tacit 
index  to  your  soul."t 

*  "  Cedant  arma  togae,  concedat  laurea  Hngiiae." 
+  Such  flowers  of  eloquence  are  not  encouraged  at  the  modeni 
bar.     But  they  were  common  enough,  even  in  the  English  law- 
courts,  in  former  times.     Mr  Attorney-Geueral  Coke's  language 


100     CHARACTER  AS  POLITICIAN  AND  ORATOR. 

It  is  not  possible,  within  the  compass  of  these  pages, 
to  give  even  the  briefest  account  of  more  than  a  few  of 
the  many  causes  (they  are  twenty -four  in  number)  in 
which  the  speeches  made  by  Cicero,  either  for  the 
prosecution  or  the  defence,  have  been  preserved  to  us. 
Some  of  them  have  more  attraction  for  the  English 
reader  than  others,  either  from  the  facts  of  the  case 
being  more  interesting  or  more  easily  understood,  or 
from  their  affording  more  opportunity  for  the  display 
of  the  speaker's  powers. 

Mr  Fox  had  an  intense  admiration  for  the  speech 
in  defence  of  Cselius.  The  opinion  of  one  who  was 
no  mean  orator  himself,  on  his  great  Roman  predeces- 
sor, may  be  worth  quoting  : — 

"  Argumentative  contention  is  not  what  he  excels  in  ; 
and  he  is  never,  I  think,  so  happy  as  when  he  has  an  op- 
portunity of  exhibiting  a  mixture  of  philosophy  and  pleas- 
antry, and  especially  when  he  can  interpose  anecdotes  and 
references  to  the  authority  of  the  eminent  characters  in  the 
history  of  his  own  country.  No  man  appears,  indeed,  to 
have  had  such  a  real  respect  for  authority  as  he  ;  and  there- 
fore when  he  speaks  on  that  subject  he  is  always  natural 
and  earnest."  * 

to  Raleigh  at  his  trial — '*Thou  viper!" — comes  quite  np  to 
Cicero's.  Perhaps  the  Irish  House  of  Parliament,  while  it  ex- 
isted, furuislied  the  choicest  modern  specimens  of  tliis  style  of 
oratory.  Mr  O'Flanagan,  in  his  '  Lives  of  the  Lord.  Chancellors 
of  Ireland,'  tells  us  that  a  member  for  Gal  way,  attacking  an 
opponent  when  he  knew  that  his  sister  was  present  during  tlie 
debate,  denounced  the  whole  family — "from  the  toothless  old 
hag  that  is  now  grinning  in  the  gallery,  to  the  white-livered 
scoundrel  that  is  shivering  on  the  floor." 

*  Letter  to  G.  Wakefield— Correspondence,  p,  35. 


DEFENCE  OF  CJSLIUS.  101 

There  is  anecdote  and  pleasantry  enough  in  this 
particular  oration  ;  but  the  scandals  of  Roman  society 
of  that  day,  into  which  the  defence  of  Caelius  was 
obliged  to  enter,  are  not  the  most  edifying  subject 
for  any  readers.  Cselius  was  a  young  man  of  "  eques- 
trian "  rank,  who  liad  been  a  kind  of  ward  of  Cicero's, 
and  must  have  given  him  a  good  deal  of  trouble  by 
his  profligate  habits,  if  the  guardianship  was  anything 
more  than  nominal.  But  in  this  particular  case  the 
accusation  brought  against  him — of  trying  to  murder 
an  ambassador  from  Egypt  by  means  of  hired  assassins, 
and  then  to  poison  the  lady  who  had  lent  him  the 
money  to  bribe  them  with  —  was  probably  nntrue. 
Clodia,  the  lady  in  question,  was  the  worthy  sister  of  the 
notorious  Clodius,  and  bore  as  evil  a  re])utation  as  it 
was  possible  for  a  woman  to  bear  in  the  corrupt  society 
of  Eome — which  is  saying  a  great  deal.  She  is  the 
real  mover  in  the  case,  though  another  enemy  of 
Cselius,  the  son  of  a  man  whom  he  had  himself  brought 
to  trial  for  bribery,  was  the  ostensible  prosecutor. 
Cicero,  therefore,  throughout  the  whole  of  his  speech, 
aims  the  bitter  shafts  of  his  wit  and  eloquence  at 
Clodia.  His  brilliant  invectives  against  this  lady,  who 
was,  as  he  pointedly  said,  "  not  only  noble  but  notori- 
ous," are  not  desirable  to  quote.  But  the  opening  of 
the  speech  is  in  the  advocate's  best  style.  The  trial, 
it  seems,  took  place  on  a  public  holiday,  when  it  Avas 
not  usual  to  take  any  cause  unless  it  were  of  pressing 
importance. 

"  If  any  spectator  be  here  present,  gentlemen,  who 
knows  nothing  of  our  laws,  our  courts  of  justice,  or 


102     CHARACTER   AS  POLITICIAy   AXD   O.RATOR. 

our  national  customs,  he  will  not  fail  to  wonder  what 
can  be  the  atrocious  nature  of  this  case,  that  on  a  day 
of  national  festival  and  public  holiday  like  this,  when 
all  other  business  in  the  Forum  is  suspended,  this 
single  trial  should  be  going  on ;  and  he  will  entertain 
no  doubt  but  that  the  accused  is  charged  with  a  crime 
of  such  enormity,  that  if  it  were  not  at  once  taken 
cognisance  of,  the  constitution  itself  would  be  in  peril. 
And  if  he  heard  that  there  was  a  law  which  enjoined 
that  in  the  case  of  seditious  and  disloyal  citizens  who 
should  take  up  arms  to  attack  the  Senate-house,  or  use 
violence  against  the  magistrates,  or  levy  war  against 
the  commonwealth,  inquisition  into  the  matter  should 
be  made  at  once,  on  the  very  day  ; — he  would  not  find 
fault  with  such  a  law  :  he  would  only  ask  the  nature 
of  the  charge.  But  when  he  heard  that  it  M^as  no  such 
atrocious  crime,  no  treasonable  attempt,  no  violent  out- 
rage, which  formed  the  subject  of  this  trial,  but  that  a 
young  man  of  brilliant  abilities,  hard-working  in  pub- 
lic life,  and  of  popular  character,  was  here  accused  by 
the  son  of  a  man  whom  he  had  himself  once  prosecuted, 
and  was  still  prosecuting,  and  that  all  a  bad  woman's 
wealth  and  influence  was  being  used  against  him, — 
he  might  take  r.o  exception  to  the  filial  zeal  of  Atra- 
tinus  ;  but  he  ^►^ould  surely  say  that  woman's  infamous 
revenge  shoulj  be  baffled  and  punished.  ...  I  can 
excuse  Atrat)j>up ;  as  to  the  other  parties,  they  deserve 
neither  exca^f©  nor  forbearance," 

It  was  a  .4^nnge  story,  the  case  for  the  prosecution, 
especially  av-i  regarded  the  alleged  attempt  to  poison 
Clodia.     The  poison  was  given  to  a  friend  of  Ctelius, 


DEFENCE   OF  COLICS.  103 

he  was  to  give  it  to  some  slaves  of  Clodia  wliom  he 
was  to  meet  at  certain  baths  frequented  by  her,  and 
they  were  in  some  way  to  administer  it.  But  the  slaves 
betrayed  the  secret ;  and  the  lady  employed  certain 
gay  and  profligate  young  men,  who  were  hangers-on 
of  her  own,  to  conceal  themselves  somewhere  in  the 
baths,  and  pounce  upon  Cselius's  emissary  with,  the 
poison  in  his  possession.  But  this  scheme  was  said 
to  have  failed.  Clodia's  detectives  had  rushed  from 
their  place  of  concealment  too  soon,  and  the  bearer  of 
the  poison  escaped.  The  counsel  for  the  prisoner 
makes  a  great  point  of  this. 

"  Why,  'tis  the  catastrophe  of  a  stage-play — nay,  of 
a  burlesque ;  when  no  more  artistic  solution  of  the 
plot  can  be  invented,  the  hero  escapes,  the  bell  rings, 
and — the  curtain  falls  !  For  I  ask  why,  when  Licinius 
was  there  trembling,  hesitating,  retreating,  trying  to 
escape — why  that  lady's  body-guard  let  him  go  out  of 
their  hands  1  Were  they  afraid  lest,  so  many  against 
one,  such  stout  champions  against  a  single  helpless 
man,  frightened  as  he  was  and  fierce  as  they  were, 
they  could  not  master  him  ?  I  should  like  exceedingly 
to  see  them,  those  curled  and  scented  youths,  the 
bosom-friends  of  this  rich  and  noble  lady  ;  those  stout 
men-at-arms  who  were  posted  by  their  she- captain  in 
this  ambuscade  in  the  baths.  And  I  should  like  to 
ask  them  how  they  hid  themselves,  and  where  1  A 
bath^ — why,  it  must  rather  have  been  a  Trojan  horse, 
which  bore  within  its  womb  this  band  of  invincible 
heroes  who  went  to  war  for  a  woman  !  I  would  make 
them  answer  this  question, — why  they,  being  so  many 


104    CHARACTER  AS  POLITICIAN  AND  ORATOR. 

and  so  brave,  did  not  either  seize  this  slight  stripling, 
whom  you  see  before  you,  where  he  stood,  or  overtake 
him  when  he  fled  1  Tliey  will  hardly  be  able  to  ex- 
plain themselves,  I  fancy,  if  they  get  into  that  witness- 
box,  however  clever  and  witty  they  may  be  at  the 
banquet, — nay,  even  eloquent  occasionally,  no  doubt, 
over  their  wine.  But  the  air  of  a  court  of  justice  is 
somewhat  different  from  that  of  the  banquet-hall ;  the 
benches  of  this  court  are  not  like  the  couches  of  a 
supper-table ;  the  array  of  this  jury  presents  a  differ- 
ent spectacle  from  a  company  of  revellers ;  nay,  the 
broad  glare  of  sunshine  is  harder  to  face  than  the 
glitter  of  the  lamps.  If  they  venture  into  it,  I  shall 
have  to  strip  them  of  their  pretty  conceits  and  fools' 
gear.  But,  if  they  will  be  ruled  by  me,  they  will  be- 
take themselves  to  another  trade,  win  favour  in  another 
quarter,  flaunt  themselves  elsewhere  than  in  this  court. 
Let  them  carry  their  brave  looks  to  their  lady  there ; 
let  them  lord  it  at  her  expense,  cling  to  her,  lie  at  her 
feet,  be  her  slaves ;  only  let  them  make  no  attempt 
upon  the  life  and  honour  of  an  innocent  man." 

The  satellites  of  Clodia  could  scarcely  have  felt  com- 
fortable under  this  withering  fire  of  sarcasm.  The 
speaker  concluded  with  an  apology — much  required — 
for  his  client's  faults,  as  those  of  a  young  man,  and  a 
promise  on  his  behalf — on  the  faith  of  an  advocate — 
that  he  would  behave  better  for  the  future.  He 
wound  up  the  whole  with  a  ])t)iut  of  sensational 
rhetoric  which  was  common,  as  has  been  said,  to 
the  Roman  bar  as  to  our  own — an  appeal  to  the 
jurymen  as  fathers.     He  pointed  to  the  aged  father  of 


DEFENCE  OF  LIGARIUS.  105 

tlie  defendant,  leaning  in  the  most  approved  attitude 
upon  tlie  shoulder  of  his  son.  Either  this,  or  the  want 
of  evidence,  or  the  eloquence  of  the  pleader,  had  its 
due  effect.  Ca^lius  was  triumphantly  acquitted ;  and 
it  is  a  proof  that  the  young  man  was  not  wholly  grace- 
less, that  he  rose  afterwards  to  high  public  office,  and 
never  forgot  his  obligations  to  his  eloquent  counsel,  to 
whom  he  continued  a  stanch  friend.  He  must  have 
had  good  abilities,  for  he  was  honoured  with  frequent 
letters  from  Cicero  when  the  latter  w^as  governor  of 
Cilicia.  He  kept  up  some  of  his  extravagapt  tastes  ; 
for  when  he  was  ^dile  (which  involved  the  taking 
upon  him  the  expense  of  certain  gladiatorial  and  wild- 
beast  exhibitions),  he  wrote  to  beg  his  friend  to  send 
him  out  of  his  province  some  panthers  for  his  show. 
Cicero  complied  with  the  request,  and  took  the  oppor- 
tunity, so  characteristic  of  him,  of  lauding  his  own  ad- 
ministration of  Cilicia,  and  making  a  kind  of  pun  at 
the  same  time.  "  I  have  given  orders  to  the  hunters 
to  see  about  the  panthers ;  but  panthers  are  very  scarce, 
and  the  few  there  are  complain,  people  say,  that  in  the 
whole  province  there  are  no  traps  laid  for  anybody  but 
for  them."  Catching  and  skinning  the  unfortunate 
provincials,  which  had  been  a  favourite  sport  with 
governors  like  Yerres,  had  been  quite  done  away  with 
in  Cilicia,  we  are  to  understand,  under  Cicero's  rule. 

His  defence  of  Ligarius,  w^ho  w^as  impeached  of  trea- 
son against  the  state  in  the  person  of  Caesar,  as  having 
borne  arms  against  him  in  his  African  campaign,  has 
also  been  deservedly  admired.  There  was  some  courage 
in  Cicero's  undertaking  his  defence  j  as  a  known  parti- 


106     CHARACTER  AS  POLITICIAN  AND  ORATOR. 

san  of  Pompey,  he  was  treading  on  dangerous  and 
delicate  ground.  Caesar  was  dictator  at  the  time  ;  and 
the  case  seems  to  have  been  tried  before  him  as  the 
sole  judicial  authority,  without  pretence  of  the  inter- 
vention of  anything  like  a  jury.  The  defence — if  de- 
fence it  may  be  called — is  a  remarkable  instance  of  the 
common  appeal,  not  to  the  merits  of  the  case,  but  to 
the  feelings  of  the  court.  After  making  out  what  case 
he  could  for  his  client,  the  advocate  as  it  were  throws 
up  his  brief,  and  rests  upon  the  clemency  of  the  judge. 
Caesar  himself,  it  must  be  remembered,  had  begun 
public  life,  like  Cicero,  as  a  pleader :  and,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  some  competent  judges,  such  as  Tacitus  and 
Quintilian,  had  bid  fair  to  be  a  close  rival. 

"  I  have  pleaded  many  causes,  Cassar — some,  in- 
deed, in  association  with  yourself,  while  your  public 
career  spared  you  to  the  courts ;  but  surely  I  never 
yet  used  language  of  this  sort, — '  Pardon  him,  sirs,  he 
has  offended :  he  has  made  a  false  step  :  he  did  not 
think  to  do  it ;  he  never  will  again.'  This  is  language 
Ave  use  to  a  father.  To  the  court  it  must  be, — '  He 
did  not  do  it :  he  never  contemplated  it :  the  evidence 
is  false  ;  the  charge  is  fabricated.'  If  you  tell  me  you 
sit  but  as  the  judge  of  the  foct  in  this  case,  Caesar, — if 
you  ask  me  where  and  when  he  served  against  you, — I 
am  silent ;  I  will  not  now  dwell  on  the  extenuating  cir- 
cumstances, which  even  before  a  judicial  tribunal  micrht 
have  their  weight.  We  take  this  course  before  a  judo-e, 
but  I  am  here  pleading  to  a  father.  '  I  have  erred—  I 
have  done  wrong,  I  am  sorry :  I  take  refuge  in  your 
clemency;  I  ask  forgiveness  for  my  fault ;  I  pray  you, 


DEFENCE   OF  LIGARIUS.  107 

pardon  me.'  .  .  .  There  is  nothing  so  popular,  believe 
me,  sir,  as  kindness  ;  of  all  your  many  virtues  none 
wins  men's  admiration  and  their  love  like  mercy.  In 
nothing  do  men  reach  so  near  the  gods,  as  when  they 
can  give  life  and  safety  to  mankind.  Fortune  has 
given  you  nothing  more  glorious  than  the  power,  your 
own  nature  can  s'liply  nothinq  more  noble  than  the 
will,  to  spare  and  pardon  wnerever  you  can.  The  case 
perhaps  demands  a  longer  advocacy — your  gracious 
disposition  feels  it  too  long  already.  So  I  make  an 
end,  preferring  for  my  cause  that  you  should  argue 
with  your  own  heart,  than  that  I  or  any  other  should 
argue  with  you.  I  wdll  urge  nothing  more  than  this, 
— the  grace  which  you  shall  extend  to  my  client  in  his 
absence,  will  be  felt  as  a  boon  by  all  here  present." 

The  great  conqueror  was,  it  is  said,  visibly  affected 
by  the  appeal,  and  Ligarius  was  pardoned. 


CHAPTER     VIII. 

MINOR    CHARACTERISTICS. 

'Not  content  with  his  triumphs  in  prose,  Cicero  had 
always  an  ambition  to  be  a  poet.  Of  his  attempts  in 
this  way  we  have  only  some  imperfect  fragments, 
scattered  here  and  there  through  his  other  works, 
too  scanty  to  form  any  judgment  upon.  His  poetical 
ability  is  apt  to  be  unfairly  measured  by  two  lines 
which  his  opponents  were  very  fond  of  quoting  and 
laughing  at,  and  which  for  that  reason  have  become 
the  best  known.  But  it  is  obvious  that  if  Wordsworth 
or  Tennyson  were  to  be  judged  solely  by  a  line  or  two 
picked  out  by  an  unfavourable  reviewer  —  say  from 
'  Peter  Bell'  or  from  the  early  version  of  the  *  Miller's 
Daughter '  —  posterity  would  have  a  very  mistaken 
appreciation  of  their  merits.  Plutarch  and  the  younger 
Pliny,  who  had  seen  more  of  Cicero's  poetry  than  we 
have,  thought  highly  of  it.  So  he  did  himself;  but 
so  it  was  his  nature  to  tiling  of  most  of  his  own  per- 
formances ;  and  such  an  estimate  is  common  to  other 
authors  besides  Cicero,  thougli  few  announce  it  so 
openly.     Montaigne  takes  him  to  task  for  this,  with 


CICERO  AS  A    POET.  109 

more  wit,  perhaps,  than  fairness.  "It  is  no  great 
fault  to  write  poor  verses ;  but  it  is  a  fault  not  to  be 
able  to  see  how  unworthy  such  poor  verses  were  of  his 
reputation."  Voltaire,  on  the  other  hand,  who  was 
perhaps  as  good  a  judge,  thought  there  was  "nothing 
more  beautiful"  than  some  of  the  fragments  of  his 
poem  on  '  Marius,'  who  was  the  ideal  hero  of  his 
youth.  Perhaps  the  very  fact,  however,  of  none  of  his 
poems  having  been  preserved,  is  some  argument  that 
such  poetic  gift  as  he  had  was  rather  facility  than 
genius.  He  wrote,  besides  this  poem  on  '  Marius,'  a 
'  History  of  my  Consulship,'  and  a  '  History  of  my  Own 
Times,'  in  verse,  and  some  translations  from  Homer. 

He  had  no  notion  of  what  other  men  called  relaxation : 
he  found  his  own  relaxation  in  a  change  of  Avork.  He 
excuses  himself  in  one  of  his  orations  for  this  strange 
taste,  as  it  would  seem  to  the  indolent  and  luxurious 
Eoman  nobles  with  whom  he  was  so  unequally  yoked. 

"  Who  after  all  shall  blame  me,  or  who  has  any 
right  to  be  angry  with  me,  if  the  time  which  is  not 
grudged  to  others  for  managing  their  private  business, 
for  attending  public  games  and  festivals,  for  pleasures 
of  any  other  kind, — nay,  even  for  very  rest  of  mind 
and  body, — the  time  which  others  give  to  convivial 
meetings,  to  the  gaming-table,  to  the  tennis-court, — 
this  much  T  take  for  myself,  for  the  resumption  of  my 
favourite  studies  ? " 

In  this  indefatigable  appetite  for  work  of  all  kinds, 
he  reminds  us  of  no  modern  politician  so  much  as  of 
Sir  George  CorneAvall  Lewis ;  yet  he  would  not  have- 
altogether  agreed  with  him  in  thinking  that  life  would 


110  MINOR  CHARACTERISTICS. 

be  very  tolerable  if  it  were  not  for  its  ainiisemeuts. 
He  was,  as  we  have  seen,  of  a  naturally  social  disposi- 
tion. "  I  like  a  dinner-party,"  he  says  in  a  letter  to 
one  of  his  friends,  "  where  I  can  say  just  what  comes 
uppermost,  and  turn  my  sighs  and  sorrows  into  a  hearty 
laugh.  I  doubt  whether  you  are  much  better  yourself, 
when  you  can  laugh  as  you  did  even  at  a  philosopher. 
When  the  man  asked — '  Whether  anybody  wanted  to 
know  anything]'  you  said  you  had  been  wanting  to 
know  all  day  when  it  would  be  dinner-time.  The 
fellow  expected  you  to  say  you  wanted  to  know 
how  many  worlds  there  were,  or  something  of  that 
kind."* 

He  is  said  to  have  been  a  great  laugher.  Indeed,  he 
confesses  honestly  that  the  sense  of  humour  was  very 
powerful  witli  him  —  "I  am  wonderfully  taken  by 
anything  comic,"  he  writes  to  one  of  his  friends.  He 
reckons  humour  also  as  a  useful  ally  to  the  orator. 
"  A  happy  jest  or  facetious  turn  is  not  only  pleasant, 
but  also  highly  useful  occasionally;"  but  he  adds  that 
this  is  an  accomplishment  which  must  come  naturally, 
and  cannot  be  taught  under  any  possible  system. t 
There  is  at  least  sufficient  evidence  that  he  was  much 
given  to  making  jokes,  and  some  of  them  which  have 
come  down  to  us  would  imply  that  a  Boman  audience 
was  not  very  critical  on  this  point.  There  is  an  air 
of  gravity  about  all  courts  of  justice  which  probably 

*  These  professional  philosophers,  at  literary  dinner-parties, 
offered  to  discuss  and  answer  any  question  propounded  by  the 
company. 

t  De  Orat.  11.  54. 


ruivs.  Ill 

makes  a  very  faint  amount  of  jocularity  hailed  as  a 
relief.  Even  in  an  English  law-court,  a  joke  from  the 
bar,  much  more  from  the  bench,  does  not  need  to  be 
of  any  remarkable  brilliancy  in  order  to  be  secure  of 
raising  a  laugh;  and  we  may  fairly  suppose  that  the 
same  was  the  case  at  Eome.  Cicero's  jokes  were  fre- 
quently nothing  more  than  puns,  which  it  would  be 
impossible,  even  if  it  were  worth  while,  to  reproduce 
to  an  English  ear.  Perhaps  the  best,  or  at  all  events 
the  most  intelligible,  is  his  retort  to  Hortensius  during 
the  trial  of  Yerres.  The  latter  Avas  said  to  have  feed 
his  counsel  out  of  his  Sicilian  spoils — especially,  there 
was  a  figure  of  a  sphinx,  of  some  artistic  value,  which 
had  found  its  way  from  the  house  of  the  ex-governor 
into  that  of  Hortensius.  Cicero  was  putting  a  witness 
through  a  cross-examination  of  which  his  opponent 
could  not  see  the  bearing,  "  I  do  not  understand  all 
this,"  said  Hortensius  ;  "I  am  no  hand  at  solving  rid- 
dles." "That  is  strange,  too,"  rejoined  Cicero,  "when 
you  have  a  sphinx  at  home."  In  the  same  trial 
he  condescended,  in  the  midst  of  that  burning  elo- 
quence of  which  Ave  have  spoken,  to  make  two  puns  on 
the  defendant's  name.  The  word  "  Ven-es  "  had  two 
meanings  in  the  old  Latin  tongue :  it  signified  a  "  boar- 
pig,"  and  also  a  "broom"  or  "sweeping-brush."  One 
of  Yerres's  friends,  who  eitlier  was  or  had  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  a  Jew,  had  tried  to  get  the  management 
of  the  prosecution  out  of  Cicero's  hands.  "  What  has 
a  Jew  to  do  with  j^ork  ?  "  asked  the  orator.  Speaking, 
in  the  course  of  the  same  trial,  of  the  Avay  in  which 
the  governor  had  made  "  requisitions  "  of  all  the  most 


112  MINOR   CHARACTERISTICS. 

valuable  works  of  art  throiigliout  the  island,  "  the 
broom,''  saiil  he,  "  swept  clean."  He  did  not  disdain 
the  comic  element  in  poetry  more  than  in  prose;  for 
we  find  in  Quintilian  *  a  quotation  from  a  punning 
epigram  in  some  collection  of  such  trifles  which  in  his 
time  bore  Cicero's  name.  Tiro  is  said  to  have  collected 
and  publislied  three  volumes  of  his  master's  good 
tilings  after  his  death ;  but  if  they  were  not  better  than 
those  which  have  coaie  down  to  us,  as  contained  in  his 
other  writings,  there  has  been  no  great  loss  to  literature 
in  Tiro's  '  Cicerouiana.'  He  knew  one  secret  at  least 
of  a  successful  humourist  in  society  :  for  it  is  to 
him  that  we  owe  the  first  authoritative  enunciation  of 
a  rule  which  is  universally  admitted  — "  that  a  jest 
never  has  so  good  an  efiect  as  when  it  is  uttered  with 
a  serious  countenance." 

Cicero  had  a  wonderful  admiration  for  the  Greeks. 
"  I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess,"  he  writes  to  his 
brother,  "  especially  since  my  life  and  career  have  been 
such  that  no  suspicion  of  indolence  or  want  of  energy 
can  rest  uptm  me,  that  all  my  own  attainments  are  due 
to  those  studies  and  those  accomplishments  which  have 
been  handed  down  to  us  in  the  literary  treasures  and 
the  philosophical  systems  of  the  Greeks."  It  was  no 
mere  rhetorical  outburst,  when  in  his  defence  of 
Valerius  Flaccus,  accused  like  Verres,  whether  truly  or 
falsely,  of  corrupt  administration  in  his  province,  he 
thus  introduced  the  deputation  from  Athens  and  Lace- 
dsemon  who  aj^peared  as  witnesses  to  the  character  of 
his  client. 

*  '  Libellus  Jocularis,'  Quint,  viii.  6. 


ESTIMATE   OF   THE   GREEKS.  113 

"  Athenians  are  here  to-day,  amongst  whom  civilisa- 
tion, learning,  religion,  agriculture,  public  law  and  jus- 
tice, had  their  birth,  and  whence  they  have  been  dis- 
seminated over  all  the  world :  for  the  possession  of 
whose  city,  on  account  of  its  exceeding  beauty,  even 
gods  are  said  to  have  contended  :  which  is  of  such  an- 
tiquity, that  she  is  said  to  have  bred  lier  citizens  within 
hei-self,  and  the  same  soil  is  termed  at  once  their  mo- 
ther, their  nurse,  and  their  country  :  whose  importance 
and  influence  is  such  that  the  name  of  Greece,  though 
it  has  lost  much  of  its  weight  and  power,  still  holds 
its  place  by  virtue  of  the  renown  of  this  single  city." 

He  had  forgotten,  perhaps,  as  an  orator  is  allowed  to 
forget,  that  in  the  very  same  speech,  when  his  object  was 
to  discredit  the  accusers  of  his  client,  he  had  said,  what 
was  very  commonly  said  of  the  Greeks  at  Eome,  that 
they  were  a  nation  of  liars.  There  were  excellent  men 
among  them,  he  allowed — thinking  at  the  moment  of  the 
counter-evidence  which  he  had  ready  for  the  defendant — 
but  he  goes  on  to  make  this  sweeping  declaration  : — 

"  I  will  say  this  of  the  whole  race  of  the  Greeks  :  I 
grant  them  literary  genius,  I  grant  them  skill  in  vari- 
ous accomplishments,  I  do  not  deny  them  elegance  in 
conversation,  acuteness  of  intellect,  fluent  oratory ; 
to  any  other  high  qualities  they  may  claim  I  make  no 
objection  :  but  the  sacred  obligation  that  lies  upon  a 
witness  to  speak  the  truth  is  what  that  nation  has 
never  regarded."  * 

There  was  a  certain  proverb,  he  went  on   to  say, 
"  Lend  me  your  evidence,"  implying — "  and  you  shall 
*  Defence  of  Yal.  Fla:cns,  c.  4. 
A.  C.    vol.  ix.  H 


114  •  .  ■    Mi:f^*VHARACTERISTICS. 

have  mine  when  you  want  it ;"  a  Greek  proverb,  of 
course,  and  men  knew  these  three  words  of  Greek  who 
knew  no  Greek  besides.  What  he  loved  in  the  Greeks, 
then,  was  rather  the  grandeur  of  their  literature  and 
the  charm  of  their  social  qualities  (a  strict  regard  for 
truth  is,  unhappily,  no  indispensable  ingredient  in  this 
last) ;  he  had  no  respect  whatever  for  their  national 
character.  The  orator  was  influenced,  perhaps,  most 
of  all  by  his  intense  reverence  for  the  Athenian  De- 
mosthenes, whom,  as  a  master  in  his  art,  he  imitated 
and  wellnigh  worshipped.  The  appreciation  of  his 
own  powers  which  every  able  man  has,  and  of  which 
Cicero  had  at  least  his  share,  fades  into  humility  when 
he  comes  to  speak  of  his  great  model.  "  Absolutely 
perfect,"  he  calls  him  in  one  place;  and  again  in  an- 
other, "What  I  have  attempted,  Demosthenes  has 
achieved."  Yet  he  felt  also  at  times,  when  the  fervour 
of  genius  was  strong  within  him,  that  there  was  an 
ideal  of  eloquence  enshrined  in  his  own  inmost  mind, 
"  which  I  can  feel,"  he  says,  "  but  which  I  never  knew 
to  exist  in  any  man." 

He  could  not  only  write  Greek  as  a  scholar,  but 
seems  to  have  spoken  it  with  considerable  ease  and 
fluency;  for  on  one  occasion  he  made  a  speech  in  that 
language,  a  condescension  which  some  of  his  friends 
thought  derogatory  to  the  dignity  of  a  Eoman. 

From  the  Greeks  he  learnt  to  appreciate  art.  How 
far  his  taste  was  really  cultivated  in  this  respect  is 
difficult  for  us  to  judge.  Some  passages  in  his  letters 
to  Atticus  might  lead  us  to  suspect  that,  as  Disraeli 
concludes,  he  was  rather  a  collector  than  a  real  lover 


LOV£  OF  GREJ::i^3^T..  •    i'  115 


of  art.  His  appeals  to  his  friend  to  buy  up  for  him 
everything  and  anything,  and  his  surrender  of  himself 
entirely  to  Atticus's  judgment  in  such  purchases,  do 
not  hespeak  a  highly  critical  taste.  In  a  letter  to  an- 
other friend,  he  seems  to  say  that  he  only  bought 
statuary  as  "  furniture "  for  the  gymnasium  at  his 
country-seat;  and  he  complains  that  four  figures  of 
Bacchanals,  which  this  friend  had  just  bought  for  him, 
had  cost  more  than  he  would  care  to  give  for  all  the 
statues  that  ever  were  made.  On  the  other  hand, 
when  he  comes  to  deal  with  Yerres's  Avholesale  plunder 
of  paintings  and  statues  in  Sicily,  he  talks  about  the 
several  works  with  considerable  enthusiasm.  Either 
he  reaUy  understood  his  subject,  or,  like  an  able  advo- 
cate, he  had  thoroughly  got  up  his  brief.  But  the 
art-notices  which  are  scattered  through  his  works  show 
a  considerable  acquaintance  with  the  artist-world  of 
his  day.  He  tells  us,  in  his  own  admirable  style,  the 
story  of  Zeuxis,  and  the  selection  which  he  made  from 
all  the  beauties  of  Crotona,  in  order  to  combine  their 
several  points  of  perfection  in  his  portrait  of  Helen ; 
he  refers  more  than  once,  and  always  in  language 
which  im})lies  an  appreciation  of  the  artist,  to  the 
works  of  Phidias,  especially  that  Avhich  is  said  to  have 
cost  him  his  life — the  shield  of  Minerva ;  and  he  dis- 
cusses, though  it  is  but  by  way  of  illustration,  the 
comparative  points  of  merit  in  the  statues  of  Calaniis, 
and  ]\Iyron,  and  Polycletus,  and  in  the  paintings  of  the 
earlier  schools  of  Zeuxis,  Polygnotus,  and  Timanthes, 
with  their  four  primitive  colours,  as  compared  with 
the  more  finished  schools  of  Protogenes  and  Apelles. 


CHAPTER     IX. 


CICERO  S    CORRESPONDENCE. 


I.    ATTICUS. 


It  seems  wonderful  how,  in  the  midst  of  all  his  work, 
Cicero  found  time  to  keep  up  such  a  voluminous 
correspondence.  Something  like  eight  hundred  of  his 
letters  still  remain  to  us,  and  there  were  whole  volumes 
of  them  long  preserved  which  are  now  lost,*  to  say 
nothing  of  the  very  many  which  may  never  have 
"been  thought  worth  preserving.  The  secret  lay  in  his 
wonderful  energy  and  activity.  "We  find  him  writing 
letters  before  day  -  break,  during  the  service  of  his 
meals,  on  his  journeys,  and  dictating  them  to  an 
amanuensis  as  he  walked  up  and  down  to  take  needful 
exercise. 

His  correspondents  were  of  almost  all  varieties  of 
position  and  character,  from  Cccsar  and  Pompey,  the 
great  men  of  the  day,  down  to  his  domestic  servant 

*  Collections  of  his  letters  to  Ctesar,  Brutus,  Cornelius  Nepos 
the  historian,  Hirtius,  Pansa,  and  to  his  son,  are  known  to  have 
existed. 


AT  TIC  us.  117 

and  secretary,  Tiro.  Amongst  tliem.  were  rich  and 
ease-loving  Epicureans  like  Atticus  and  Psetus,  and 
even  men  of  pleasure  like  Cselius  :  grave  Stoics  like 
Cato,  eager  patriots  like  Brutus  and  Cassius,  authors 
such  as  Cornelius  Nepos  and  Lucceius  the  historians, 
Viirro  the  grammarian,  and  jNIetius  the  poet ;  men  who 
dabbled  with  literature  in  a  gentleman-like  way,  like 
Hirtius  and  Appius,  and  the  accomplished  literary 
critic  and  patron  of  the  day  —  himself  of  no  mean 
reputation  as  poet,  orator,  and  historian — Caius  Asinius 
Pollio.  Cicero's  versatile  powers  found  no  difficulty 
in  suiting  the  contents  of  his  own  letters  to  the  various 
tastes  and  interests  of  his  friends.  Sometimes  he 
sends  to  his  correspondent  what  was  in  fact  a  political 
journal  of  the  day — rather  one-sided,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, as  all  political  journals  are,  but  furnishing  us 
with  items  of  intelligence  which  throw  hght,  as  nothing 
else  can,  on  the  history  of  those  latter  days  of  the 
Ee public.  Sometimes  he  jots  down  the  mere  gossip 
of  his  last  dinner-party;  sometimes  he  notices  the 
speculations  of  the  last  new  theorist  in  philosophy,  or 
discusses  with  a  literary  friend  some  philological  ques- 
tion— the  latter  being  a  study  in  which  he  was  very 
fond  of  dabbUng,  though  with  little  success,  for  the 
science  of  language  was  as  yet  unknoAvn. 

His  chief  correspondent,  as  has  been  said,  w^as  his 
old  school-fellow  and  constant  friend  through  life, 
Pomponius  Atticus.  The  letters  addressed  to  him 
which  still  remain  to  us  cover  a  period  of  twenty-four 
years,  with  a  few  occasional  interruptions,  and  the 
correspondence  only  ceased  with  Cicero's  death.     The 


118  CICERO'S  CORRESPONDENCE. 

Athenianised  Roman,  though  he  had  deliberately  with- 
drawn himself  from  the  distracting  factions  of  his 
native  city,  which  he  seldom  revisited,  kept  on  the 
best  terms  with  the  leaders  of  all  parties,  and  seems 
to  have  taken  a  very  lively  interest,  though  merely  in 
the  character  of  a  looker-on,  in  the  political  events 
which  crowded  so  fast  upon  each  other  during  the  fifty 
years  of  his  voluntary  expatriation.  Cicero's  letters 
were  to  him  wliat  an  English  newspaper  would  be 
now  to  an  English  gentleman  who  for  his  own  reasons 
preferred  to  reside  in  Paris,  without  forswearing  his 
national  interests  and  sympathies.  At  times,  when 
Cicero  was  more  at  leisure,  and  when  messengers  were 
handy  (for  we  have  to  remember  that  there  was  nothing 
like  our  modern  post),  Cicero  would  despatch  one  of 
these  letters  to  Atticus  daily.  We  have  nearly  four 
hundred  of  them  in  all.  They  are  continually  gar- 
nished, even  to  the  point  of  affectation,  with  Greek 
quotations  and  phrases,  partly  perhaps  in  compliment 
to  his  friend's  Athenian  tastes,  and  partly  from  the 
writer's  own  passion  for  the  language. 

So  much  reference  has  been  made  to  them  through- 
out the  previous  biographical  sketch, — for  they  supply 
us  with  some  of  the  most  important  materials  for 
Cicero's  life  and  times, — that  it  may  be  sufficient  to 
give  in  this  j)lace  two  or  three  of  the  shorter  as  speci- 
mens of  the  collection.  One  wliich  describes  a  visit 
which  he  received  from  Julius  Caesar,  already  dictator, 
in  his  country-house  near  Puteoli,  is  interesting,  as 
affording  a  glimpse  behind  the  scenes  in  those  mo- 
mentous days  when  no  one  knew  exactly  whether  the 


ATTICUS,  119 

great  captain  was  to  turn  out  a  patriot  or  a  conspirator 
against  the  liberties  of  Rome, 

"  To  think  that  I  should  have  had  such  a  tremen- 
dous visitor  !  But  never  mind  ;  for  all  went  off  very 
pleasantly.  But  when  he  arrived  at  Philippus's  house* 
on  the  evening  of  the  second  day  of  the  Saturnalia, 
the  place  was  so  fuU  of  soldiers  that  they  could  hardly 
find  a  spare  table  for  Caesar  himself  to  dine  at.  There 
were  two  thousand  men.  Eeally  I  was  in  a  state  of 
perplexity  as  to  what  was  to  be  done  next  day :  but 
Barba  Cassius  came  to  my  aid, — he  supplied  me  with 
a  guard.  They  pitched  their  tents  in  the  grounds,  and 
the  house  was  protected.  He  stayed  with  Philippus 
until  one  o'clock  on  the  third  day  of  the  Saturnalia, 
and  would  see  no  one.  Going  over  accounts,  I  suppose, 
with  Balbus.  Then  he  walked  on  the  sea-shore.  After 
two  he  had  a  bath:  then  he  listened  to  some  verses  on 
Mamurra,  without  moving  a  muscle  of  his  countenance : 
then  dressed,t  and  sat  down  to  dinner.  He  had  taken 
a  precautionary  emetic,  and  therefore  ate  and  drank 
heartily  and  unrestrainedly.  "We  had,  I  assure  you,  a 
very  good  dinner,  and  well  served ;  and  not  only  that, 
but 

*  The  feast  of  reason  and  the  flow  of  soul  'J 

besides.     His  suite  were  abundantly  supplied  at  three 
other  tables  :  the  freedmen  of  lower  rank,  and  even 

*  This  was  close  to  Cicero's  villa,  on  the  coast. 

t  Literally,  "he  got  himself  oiled."  The  emetic  was  a  disgust- 
ing practice  of  Roman  hoii  vivants  who  were  afraid  of  indigestion. 

X  The  verse  which  Cicero  quotes  from  Lucilius  is  fairly  equiva- 
lent to  this. 


120  CICERO'S  CORRESPONDENCE. 

the  slaves,  were  well  taken  care  of.  The  higher  class 
had  really  an  elegant  entertainment.  Well,  no  need  to 
make  a  long  story ;  we  found  we  were  both  '  flesh  and 
blood.'  Still  he  is  not  the  kind  of  guest  to  whom  you 
would  say — '  Now  do,  pray,  take  us  in  your  way  on 
your  return.'  Once  is  enough.  We  had  no  conversa- 
tion on  business,  but  a  good  deal  of  literary  talk.  In 
short,  he  seemed  to  be  much  pleased,  and  to  enjoy 
himself.  He  said  he  should  stay  one  day  at  Puteoli, 
and  another  at  Bai^e.  So  here  you  have  an  account  of 
this  visit,  or  rather  quartering  of  troops  upon  me, 
which  I  disliked  the  thoughts  of,  but  which  really,  as 
I  have  said,  gave  me  no  annoyance.  I  shall  stay  here 
a  little  longer,  then  go  to  my  house  at  Tusculum. 
When  Csesar  passed  Dolabella's  villa,  all  the  troops 
formed  up  on  the  right  and  left  of  his  horse,  which 
they  did  nowhere  else.*     I  heard  that  from  Nicias." 

In  the  following,  he  is  anticipating  a  visit  from  his 
friend,  and  from  the  lady  to  whom  he  is  betrothed- 

"  I  had  a  delightful  visit  from  Cincius  on  the  30th 
of  January,  before  daylight.  For  he  told  me  that  you 
were  in  Italy,  and  that  he  was  going  to  send  off  some 
me£*3engers  to  you,  and  would  not  let  them  go  without 
a  letter  from  me.  Not  that  I  have  much  to  write 
about  (especially  when  you  are  all  but  here),  except 
to  assure  you  that  I  am  anticipating  your  arrival  with 
the  greatest  delight.  Therefore  fly  to  me,  to  show  your 
own  affection,  and  to  see  what  affection  I  bear  you. 
Other  matters  when  we  meet.  I  have  written  this  in 
a  hurry.     As  soon  as  ever  you  arrive,  bring  all  your 

*  Probably  by  way  of  salute  ;  or  possibly  as  a  precaution. 


PJ^TUS,  121 

people  to  my  house.  You  will  gratify  me  very  much 
by  coming.  You  will  see  how  AvonderfuUy  well  Tyr- 
rannio  has  arranged  my  books,  the  remains  of  which 
are  much  better  than  I  had  thought.  And  I  should 
be  very  glad  if  you  could  send  me  a  couple  of  your 
library  clerks  whom  Tyrrannio  could  make  use  of  as 
binders,  and  to  help  him  in  other  ways  ;  and  tell  them 
to  bring  some  parchment  to  make  indices — syllabuses, 
I  believe  you  Greeks  call  them.  But  this  only  if  quite 
convenient  to  you.  But,  at  any  rate,  be  sure  you  come 
yourself,  if  you  can  make  any  stay  in  our  parts,  and 
bring  Pilia  with  you,  for  that  is  but  fair,  and  Tullia 
wishes  it  much.  Upon  my  word  you  have  bought 
a  very  fine  place.  I  hear  that  your  gladiators  fight 
capitally.  If  you  had  cared  to  hire  them  out,  you 
might  have  cleared  your  expenses  at  these  two  last 
public  shows.  But  we  can  talk  about  this  hereafter. 
Be  sure  to  come  :  and  do  your  best  about  the  clerks, 
if  you  love  me." 

The  Eoman  gentleman  of  elegant  and  accomplished 
tastes,  keeping  a  troop  of  private  gladiators,  and  think- 
ing of  hiring  them  out,  to  our  notions,  is  a  curious 
combination  of  character ;  but  the  taste  was  not  essen- 
tially more  brutal  than  the  prize-ring  and  the  cock- 
fights of  the  last  century. 

II.    PiETUS. 

Another  of  Cicero's  favourite  correspondents  was 
Papirius  Paetus^who  seems  to  have  lived  at  home  at 
ease,  and  taken  Httle  part  in  the  political  tumults  of 


122  CICERO'S  CORRESPONDENCE. 

his  day.  Like  Atticus,  lie  was  an  Epicurean,  and 
thought  more  of  the  pleasures  of  life  than  of  its  cares 
and  duties.  Yet  Cicero  evidently  took  great  pleasure 
in  his  society,  and  his  letters  to  him  are  written  in  the 
same  familiar  and  genial  tone  as  those  to  his  old  school- 
fellow. Some  of  them  throw  a  pleasant  light  upon 
the  social  habits  of  the  day.  Cicero  had  had  some 
friends  staying  with  him  at  his  country-seat  at  Tus- 
culum,  to  whom,  he  says,  he  had  been  giving  lessons 
in  oratory.  Dolabella,  his  son-in-law,  and  Hirtius,  the 
future  consul,  were  among  them.  •'  They  are  my 
scholars  in  declamation,  and  I  am  theirs  in  dinner- 
eating  ;  for  I  conclude  you  have  heard  (you  seem  to 
hear  everything)  that  they  come  to  me  to  declaim,  and 
I  go  to  them  for  dinners.  'Tis  all  very  well  for  you 
to  swear  that  you  cannot  entertain  me  in  such  grand 
fashion  as  I  am  used  to,  but  it  is  of  use.  .  .  .  Better 
be  victimised  by  your  friend  than  by  your  debtors,  as 
you  have  been.  After  all,  I  don't  require  such  a  ban- 
quet as  leaves  a  great  waste  behind  it ;  a  little  will  do, 
only  handsomely  served  and  well  cooked.  I  remember 
your  telling  me  about  a  dinner  of  Phamea's — well,  it 
need  not  be  such  a  late  affair  as  that,  nor  so  grand  in 
other  res2:)ects ;  nay,  if  you  persist  in  giving  me  one  of 
your  mother's  old  family  dinners,  I  can  stand  even 
that.  My  new  reputation  for  good  living  has  reached 
you,  I  find,  before  my  arrival,  and  you  are  alarmed  at 
it ;  but,  pray,  put  no  trust  in  your  ante-courses — I 
have  given  up  that  altogether.  I  used  to  spoil  my 
appetite,  I  remember,  upon  your  oil  and  sliced  sausages. 
.     .     .     One  expense  I  really  shall  put  you  to;  I  must 


P^TUS.  123 

have  my  warm  hath.  IMy  other  hahits,  I  assure  you, 
are  quite  unaltered ;  all  the  rest  is  joke." 

Psetus  seems  to  answer  him  with  the  same  good- 
humoured  badinage.  Balbus,  the  governor  of  Africa, 
had  been  to  see  him,  he  says,  and  he  had  been  content 
with  such  humble  fare  as  he  feared  Cicero  might 
despise.  So  much,  at  least,  we  may  gather  from 
Cicero's  answer. 

"  Satirical  as  ever,  I  see.  You  say  Balbus  was  con- 
tent with  very  modest  fare.  You  seem  to  insinuate 
that  when  i^randees  are  so  moderate,  much  more  ought 
a  poor  ex-consul  like  myself  so  to  be.  You  don't 
know  that  I  fished  it  all  out  of  your  visitor  himself, 
for  he  came  straight  to  my  house  on  his  landing.  The 
very  first  words  I  said  to  him  were,  '  How  did  you 
get  on  with  our  friend  Psetus  % '  He  swore  he  had 
never  been  better  entertained.  If  this  referred  to  the 
charms  of  your  conversation,  remember,  I  shall  be 
quite  as  appreciative  a  listener  as  Balbus ;  but  if  it 
meant  the  good  things  on  the  table,  I  must  beg  you 
will  not  treat  us  men  of  eloquence  worse  than  you  do 
a  *  Lisper.'  "  * 

They  carry  on  this  banter  through  several  letters. 
Cicero  regrets  that  he  has  been  unable  as  yet  to  pay 
his  threatened  visit,  when  his  friend  would  have  seen 
what  advances  he  had  made  in  gastronomic  science. 
He  was  able  now  to  eat  through  the  whole  bill  of  fare 
— "  from  the  eggs  to  the  roti.'^ 

"  I  [Stoic  that  used  to  be]  have  gone  over  with  my 
whole  forces  into  the  camp  of  Epicurus.      You  will 

*  One  of  Cicero's  puns.     Balbus  means  '  Lisper.* 


124  CICERO'S  CORRESPONDENCE. 

have  to  do  with  a  man  who  can  eat,  and  who  knows 
what's  what.  You  know  how  conceited  we  late 
learners  are,  as  the  proverb  says.  You  will  have  to 
unlearn  those  little  '  plain  dinners '  and  makeshifts  of 
yours.  We  have  made  such  advances  in  the  art,  that 
we  have  been  venturing  to  invite,  more  than  once, 
your  friends  Verrius  and  Camillas  (what  elegant  and 
fastidious  gentlemen  they  are !).  But  see  how  auda- 
cious we  are  getting !  I  have  even  given  Hirtius  a 
dinner — but  without  a  peacock.  My  cook  could  imi- 
tate nothing  in  his  entertainments  except  the  hot 
soup." 

Then  he  hears  that  his  friend  is  in  bed  with  the 
gout. 

"  I  am  extremely  sorry  to  hear  it,  as  in  duty  bound; 
still,  I  am  quite  determined  to  come,  that  I  may  see 
you,  and  pay  my  visit, — yes,  and  have  my  dinner  :  for 
I  suppose  your  cook  has  not  got  the  gout  as  well." 

Such  were  the  playful  epistles  of  a  busy  man.  But 
even  in  some  of  these  lightest  effusions  we  see  the 
cares  of  the  statesman  showing  through.  Here  is  a 
portion  of  a  later  letter  to  the  same  friend. 

"  I  am  very  much  concerned  to  hear  you  have  given 
up  going  out  to  dinner ;  for  it  is  depriving  yourself  of 
a  great  source  of  enjoyment  and  gratification.  Then, 
again,  I  am  afraid — for  it  is  as  well  to  speak  honestly 
— lest  you  should  unlearn  certain  old  habits  of  yours, 
and  forget  to  give  your  own  little  dinners.  For  if  for- 
merly, when  you  had  good  examples  to  imitate,  you 
were  still  not  much  of  a  proficient  in  that  way,  how 
can  I  supjDOse  you  will  get  on  now  1     Spurina,  indeed, 


HIS  BROTHER   QUINTUS.  125 

when  I  mentioned  the  thing  to  him,  and  explained 
your  previous  hahits,  proved  to  demonstration  tliat 
there  woukl  be  danger  to  the  highest  interests  of  the 
state  if  you  did  not  return  to  your  old  ways  in  the 
spring.  Eut  indeed,  my  good  Partus,  I  advise  you, 
joking  apart,  to  associate  with  good  fellows,  and  pleas- 
ant fellows,  and  men  who  are  fond  of  you.  There  is 
nothing  better  worth  having  in  life,  nothing  that  makes 
life  more  happy.  .  =  .  See  how  I  employ  philo- 
sophy to  reconcile  you  to  dinner-parties,  lake  care 
of  your  health ;  and  that  you  will  best  do  by  going 
out  to  dinner.  .  .  .  But  don't  imagine,  as  you 
love  me,  that  because  I  write  jestingly  I  have  thro^vni 
off  all  anxiety  about  public  affairs.  Be  assured,  my 
dear  Ptetus,  that  I  seek  nothing  and  care  for  nothing, | 
night  or  day,  but  how  my  country  may  be  kejit  • 
safe  and  free.  I  omit  no  opportunity  of  advising, ' 
planning,  or  acting.  I  feel  in  my  heart  that  if  in 
securing  this  I  have  to  lay  down  my  life,  I  shall  have 
ended  it  well  and  honourablv." 


III.    HIS   BROTHER   QUINTUS. 


Between  !Marcus  Cicero  and  his  younger  brother 
Quintus  there  existed  a  very  sincere  and  cordial  affec- 
tion— somewhat  warmer,  perhaps,  on  the  side  of  the 
elder,  inasmuch  as  his  wealth  and  position  enabled 
him  rather  to  confer  than  to  receive  kindnesses ;  the 
rule  in  such  cases  being  (so  cynical  philosoi:)hers  tell 
us)  that  the  affection  is  lessened  rather  than  increased 
by  the  feeling  of  obligation.     He  almost  adopted  the 


126  CICERO'S  CORRESPONDENCE. 

younger  Quiutus,  his  nephew,  and  had  him  educated 
with  his  own  son ;  and  the  two  cousins  received  their 
earlier  training  together  in  one  or  other  of  Marcus 
Cicero's  country-houses  under  a  clever  Greek  freedman 
of  his,  who  was  an  excellent  scholar,  and — what  was 
less  usual  amongst  his  countrymen,  unless  Cicero's 
estimate  of  them  does  them  great  injustice — a  very 
honest  man,  but,  as  the  two  boys  complained,  terribly 
passionate.  Cicero  himself,  however,  was  the  head 
tutor — an  office  for  which,  as  he  modestly  writes,  his 
Greek  studies  fully  qualified  him.  Quintus  Cicero 
behaved  ill  to  his  brother  after  the  battle  of  Pharsalia, 
making  what  seem  to  have  been  very  unjust  accusa- 
tions against  him  in  order  to  pay  court  to  Caesar ;  but 
they  soon  became  friends  again. 

Twenty-nine  of  the  elder  Cicero's  letters  to  his 
brother  remain,  written  in  terms  of  remarkable  kind- 
ness and  affection,  which  go  far  to  vindicate  the  Roman 
character  from  a  chai-ge  which  has  sometimes  been 
brought  against  it  of  coldness  in  these  family  relation- 
ships. Few  modern  brothers,  probably,  would  write  to 
each  other  in  such  terms  as  these  : — 

"  Afraid  lest  your  letters  bother  me  ?  I  wish  you 
would  bother  me,  and  re-bother  me,  and  talk  to  me 
and  at  me ;  for  what  can  give  me  more  pleasure  ?  I 
swear  that  no  muse-stricken  rhymester  ever  reads  his 
own  last  poem  with  more  delight  than  I  do  what  you 
write  to  me  about  matters  public  or  private,  town  or 
country.  Here  now  is  a  letter  from  you  full  of  pleas- 
ant matter,  but  with  this  dash  of  the  disagreeable  in 
it,   that  you  have  been   afraid — nay,  are   even  now 


HIS  BROTHER   QUINTUS.  127 

afraid — of  being  troublesome  to  me.  I  could  quarrel 
with  you  about  it,  if  that  were  not  a  sin.  But  if  I 
have  reason  to  suspect  anything  of  that  sort  again,  I 
can  only  say  that  I  shall  always  be  afraid  lest,  when 
we  are  together,  I  may  be  troublesome  to  you." 

Or  take,  again,  the  pathetic  apology  which  he  makes 
for  having  avoided  an  interview  with  Quintus  in  those 
hrst  days  of  his  exile  when  he  was  so  thoroughly 
unmanned  : — 

"  My  brother,  my  brother,  my  brother !  Did  you 
really  fear  that  I  was  angry,  because  I  sent  off  the 
slaves  without  any  letter  to  you  ?  And  did  you  even 
think  that  I  was  unwilling  to  see  you  1  I  angry  with 
you  ?  Could  I  possibly  be  angry  with  you  ?  .  .  , 
When  I  miss  you,  it  is  not  a  brother  only  that  I  miss. 
To  me  you  have  always  been  the  pleasantest  of  com- 
panions, a  son  in  dutiful  affection,  a  father  in  counsel. 
What  pleasure  ever  had  I  without  you,  or  you  with- 
out me?" 

Quintus  had  accompanied  Caesar  on  his  expedition 
into  Britain  as  one  of  his  lieutenants,  and  seems  to 
have  written  home  to  his  brother  some  notices  of  the 
country ;  to  which  the  latter,  towards  the  end  of  his 
reply,  makes  this  allusion  : — 

"How  delighted  I  was  to  get  your  letter  from 
Britain  !  I  had  been  afraid  of  the  voyage  across, 
afraid  of  the  rock-bound  coast  of  the  island.  The 
other  dangers  of  such  a  campaign  I  do  not  mean  to  de- 
spise, but  in  these  there  is  more  to  hope  than  to  fear, 
and  I  have  been  rather  anxiously  expecting  the  result 
than  in  any  real  alarm  about  it.     I  see  vou  have  a 


128  CICERO'S  CORRESPONDENCJS. 

capital  subject  to  write  about.  What  novel  scenery, 
what  natural  curiosities  and  remarkable  places,  what 
strange  tribes  and  strange  customs,  what  a  campaign, 
and  what  a  commander  you  have  to  describe  !  I  will 
willingly  help  you  in  the  points  you  request ;  and  I 
will  send  you  the  verses  you  ask  for — though  it  is 
sending  '  an  owl  to  Athens,'  *  I  know." 

In  another  letter  he  says,  "  Only  give  me  Britain  to 
paint  with  your  colours  and  my  own  pencil."  But 
either  the  Britons  of  those  days  did  not,  after  all, 
seem  to  afford  sufficient  interest  for  poem  or  history, 
or  for  some  other  reason  this  joint  literary  undertaking, 
which  seems  once  to  have  been  contemplated,  was 
never  carried  out,  and  we  have  missed  what  would 
beyond  doubt  have  been  a  highly  interesting  volume 
of  Sketches  in  Britain  by  the  brothers  Cicero. 

Quintus  was  a  poet,  as  well  as  his  brother — nay,  a 
better  poet,  in  the  latter's  estimation,  or  at  least  he 
was  polite  enough  to  say  so  more  than  once.  In  quan- 
tity, at  least,  if  not  in  quality,  the  younger  must  have 
been  a  formidable  rival,  for  he  wrote,  as  appears  from 
one  of  these  letters,  four  tragedies  in  fifteen  days — 
possibly  translations  only  from  the  Greek. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  of  all  Cicero's  letters, 
and  perhaps  that  which  does  him  most  credit  both  as 
a  man  and  a  statesman,  is  one  which  he  wrote  to  his 
brother,  who  was  at  the  time  governor  of  Asia.  In- 
deed, it  is  much  more  than  a  letter ;  it  is  rather  a  gi^ave 
and  carefully  weighed  pajDer  of  instructions  on  the 
duties  of  such  a  position.     It  is  full  of  sound  practical 

*  A  Greek  proverb,  equivalent  to  our  'coals  to  Newcastle.' 


ON  THE  DUTIES  OF  A    GOVERyOR.  129 

sense,  and  lofty  principles  of  statesmanship — very 
different  from  the  principles  which  too  commonly  ruled 
the  conduct  of  Roman  governors  abroad.  The  province 
which  had  fallen  to  the  lot  of  Quintus  Cicero  was  one 
of  the  richest  belonging  to  the  Empire,  and  which  pre- 
sented the  greatest  temptations  and  the  greatest  facil- 
ities for  the  abuse  of  power  to  selfish  purposes.  Though 
called  Asia,  it  consisted  only  of  the  late  kingdom  of 
Pergamus,  and  had  come  under  the  dominion  of  Rome, 
not  by  conquest,  as  was  the  case  with  most  of  the 
provinces,  but  by  way  of  legacy  from  Attains,  the  last 
of  its  kings ;  w^ho,  after  murdering  most  of  his 
own  relations,  had  named  the  Roman  people  as  his 
heirs.  The  seat  of  government  was  at  Ephesus.  The 
population  was  of  a  very  mixed  character,  consisting 
partly  of  true  Asiatics,  and  partly  of  Asiatic  Greeks, 
the  descendants  of  the  old  colonists,  and  containing 
also  a  large  Roman  element — merchants  who  were 
there  for  purposes  of  trade,  many  of  them  bankers 
and  money-lenders,  and  speculators  who  farmed  the 
imperial  taxes,  and  were  by  no  means  scrupulous  in 
the  matter  of  fleecing  the  provincials.  These  latter 
— the  '  Publicani,'  as  they  w^ere  termed — might  prove 
very  dangerous  enemies  to  any  too  zealous  reformer. 
If  the  Roman  governor  there  really  wished  to  do  his 
duty,  what  with  the  combined  servility  and  double- 
dealing  of  the  Orientals,  the  proverbial  lying  of  the 
Greeks,  and  the  grasping  injustice  of  the  Roman 
officials,  he  had  a  very  difficult  part  to  play.  How 
Quintus  had  been  playing  it  is  not  quite  clear.  His 
brother,  in  this  admirable  letter,  assumes  that  he  had 
A.  c.  vol.  ix.  I 


130  CICERO'S  CORRESPONDENCE. 

done  all  that  was  right,  and  urges  him  to  maintain  the 
same  course.  But  the  advice  would  hardly  have  heen 
needed  if  all  had  gone  well  hitherto. 

"  You  will  find  little  trouble  in  holding  your  subor- 
dinates in  check,  if  you  can  but  keep  a  check  upon 
yourself.  So  long  as  you  resist  gain,  and  pleasure,  and 
all  other  temptations,  as  I  am  sure  you  do,  I  cannot 
fancy  there  will  be  any  danger  of  your  not  being  able 
to  check  a  dishonest  merchant  or  an  extortionate  col- 
le/ctor.  For  even  the  Greeks,  when  they  see  you  living 
thus,  will  look  upon  you  as  some  hero  from  their  old 
annals,  or  some  supernatural  being  from  heaven,  come 
down  into  their  province. 

"  I  write  thus,  not  to  urge  you  so  to  act,  but  that  you 
may  congratulate  yourself  upon  having  so  acted,  now 
and  heretofore.  For  it  is  a  glorious  thing  for  a  man  to 
have  held  a  government  for  three  years  in  Asia,  in  such 
sort  that  neither  statue,  nor  painting,  nor  work  of  art 
of  any  kind,  nor  any  temptations  of  wealth  or  beauty 
(in  all  which  temptations  your  province  abounds)  could 
draw  you  from  the  strictest  integrity  and  self-control : 
that  your  official  progresses  should  have  been  no  cause 
of  dread  to  the  inhabitants,  that  none  should  be  im- 
poverished by  your  requisitions,  none  terrified  at  the 
news  of  your  approach  ; — but  that  you  should  have 
brought  Avith  you,  wherever  you  came,  the  most  hearty 
rejoicings,  public  and  private,  inasmuch  as  every  town 
saw  in  you  a  protector  and  not  a  tyrant — every  family 
received  you  as  a  guest,  not  as  a  plunderer. 

"  But  in  these  points,  as  experience  has  by  this  time 
taught  you,   it  is  not  enough  for  you  to  have  these 


ON  THE  DUTIES  OF  A    GOVERNOR.  131 

virtues  y.ourself,  but  you  must  look  to  it  carefully,  that 
in  this  guardianship  of  the  province  not  you  alone, 
but  every  officer  under  you,  discharges  his  duty  to  our 
subjects,  to  our  fellow-citizens,  and  to  the  state.  .  .  . 
If  any  of  your  subordinates  seem  grasping  for  his 
own  interest,  you  may  venture  to  be^r  with  him  so 
long  as  he  merely  neglects  the  rules  by  which  he  ought 
to  be  personally  bound ;  never  so  far  as  to  allow  him  to 
abuse  for  his  own  gain  the  power  with  which  you  have 
intrusted  him  to  maintain  the  dignity  of  his  office. 
For  I  do  not  think  it  well,  especially  since  the  cus- 
toms of  official  life  incline  so  much  of  late  to  laxity 
and  corrupt  influence,  that  you  should  scrutinise  too 
closely  every  abuse,  or  criticise  too  strictly  every  one 
of  your  officers,  but  rather  place  trust  in  each  in  pro- 
portion as  you  feel  confidence  in  his  integrity. 

'*  For  those  whom  the  state  has  assigned  you  as  com- 
panions and  assistants  in  public  business,  you  are  answer- 
able only  within  the  limits  I  have  just  laid  down ;  but 
for  those  whom  you  have  chosen  to  associate  with 
yourself  as  members  of  your  private  establishment  and 
personal  suite,  you  will  be  held  responsible  not  only  for 
all  they  do,  but  for  all  they  say. 

"  Your  ears  should  be  supposed  to  hear  only  what  you 
publicly  listen  to,  not  to  be  open  to  every  secret  and 
false  whisper  for  the  sake  of  private  gain.  Your  official 
seal  should  be  not  as  a  mere  common  tool,  but  as 
though  it  were  yourself ;  not  the  instrument  of  other 
men's  wills,  but  the  evidence  of  your  own.  Your  offi- 
cers should  be  the  agents  of  your  clemency,  not  of  their 
own  caprice  j  and  the  rods  and  axes  which  they  bear 


132  CICERO'S  CORRESPONDENCE. 

sliould  be  the  emblems  of  your  dignity,  not  merely  of 
your  power.  In  short,  the  whole  province  should  feel 
that  the  persons,  the  families,  tlie  reputation,  and  the 
fortunes  of  all  over  whom  you  rule,  are  held  by  you 
very  precious.  Let  it  be  well  understood  that  you  will 
hold  that  man  as  much  your  enemy  who  gives  a  bribe, 
if  it  comes  to  your  knowledge,  as  the  man  who  receives 
it.  But  no  one  will  offer  bribes,  if  this  be  once  made 
clear,  that  those  who  pretend  to  have  influence  of  this 
kind  with  you  have  no  power,  after  all,  to  gain  any 
favour  for  others  at  your  hands. 

•  •  •  •  •  •  ••  • 

"Let  such,  then,  be  the  foundations  of  your  dignity; 
— first,  integrity  and  self-control  on  your  own  part ;  a 
becoming  behaviour  ou  the  part  of  all  aljout  you  ;  a 
very  careful  and  circumspect  selection  of  your  intimates, 
whether  Greeks  or  provincials  ;  a  grave  and  firm  disci- 
pline maintained  throughout  your  household.  For  if 
such  conduct  befits  us  in  our  private  and  everyday 
relations,  it  becomes  wellnigh  godlike  in  a  govern- 
ment of  such  extent,  in  a  state  of  morals  so  depraved, 
and  in  a  province  which  presents  so  many  temptations. 
Such  a  line  of  conduct  and  such  rules  will  alone  enable 
you  to  uphold  that  severity  in  your  decisions  and  de- 
crees which  you  have  employed  in  some  cases,  and  by 
which  we  have  incurred  (and  I  cannot  regret  it)  the  jeal- 
ousy of  certain  interested  parties.  .  .  .  You  may 
safely  use  the  utmost  strictness  in  the  administration 
of  justice,  so  long  as  it  is  not  capricious  or  partial,  but 
maintained  at  the  same  level  for  all.  Yet  it  will  be  of 
little  use  that  your  own  decisions  be  just  and  carefully 


TIRO.  133 

weighed,  unless  tlie  same  course  be  pursued  by  all  to 
whom  you  delegate  any  portion  of  your  judicial  autho- 
rity. Such  firmness  and  dignity  must  be  employed 
as  may  not  only  be  above  partiality,  but  above  the 
suspicion  of  it.  To  this  must  be  added  readiness  to 
give  audience,  calmness  in  deciding,  care  in  weighing 
the  merits  of  the  case  and  in  satisfying  the  claims  of 
the  parties." 

Yet  he  advises  that  justice  should  be  tempered  with 
leniency. 

"If  such  moderation  be  popular  at  Eome,  where 
there  is  so  much  self-assertion,  such  unbridled  freedom, 
so  much  licence  allowed  to  all  men  ; — where  there  are 
so  many  courts  of  appeal  open,  so  many  means  of  help, 
where  the  people  have  so  much  power  and  the  Senate 
so  much  authority;  how  grateful  beyond  measure  will 
moderation  be  in  the  governor  of  Asia,  a  province 
where  all  that  vast  number  of  our  fellow-citizens  and 
subjects,  all  those  numerous  states  and  cities,  hang  upon 
one  man's  nod  !  where  there  is  no  appeal  to  the  tri- 
bune, no  remedy  at  law,  no  Senate,  no  popular  assembly. 
Wherefore  it  should  be  the  aim  of  a  great  man,  and 
one  noble  by  nature  and  trained  by  education  and 
liberal  studies,  so  to  behave  himself  in  the  exercise  of 
that  absolute  power,  as  that  they  over  whom  he  pre- 
sides should  never  have  cause  to  wish  for  any  authority 
other  than  his." 

IV.    TIRO. 

Of  all  Cicero's  coiTespondence,  his  letters  to  Tiro 
supply  the  most  convincing  evidence  of  his  natural 


134  CICERO'S  CORRESPOXDENCE. 

kindness  of  heart.  Tiro  was  a  slave  ;  but  this  must 
he  taken  with  some  explanation.  The  slaves  in  a 
household  like  Cicero's  would  vary  in  position  from 
the  lowest  menial  to  the  important  major-domo  and 
the  confidential  secretary.  Tiro  was  of  this  higher 
class.  He  had  probably  been  born  and  brought  up  in 
the  service,  like  Eliezer  in  the  household  of  Abraham, 
and  had  become,  like  him,  the  trusted  agent  of  his 
master  and  the  friend  of  the  whole  family.  He  was 
evidently  a  person  of  considerable  ability  and  accom- 
plishments, acting  as  literary  amanuensis,  and  indeed 
in  some  sort  as  a  domestic  critic,  to  his  busy  master. 
He  had  accompanied  him  to  his  government  in  Cilicia, 
and  on  the  return  home  had  been  taken  ill,  and  obliged 
to  be  left  behind  at  Patrse.  And  this  is  Cicero's  affec- 
tionate letter  to  him,  written  from  Leucas  (Santa 
Maura)  the  day  afterwards  : — 

"  I  thought  I  could  have  borne  the  separation  from 
you  better,  but  it  is  plainly  impossible ;  and  although 
it  is  of  great  importance  to  the  honours  which  I  am 
expecting  *  that  I  should  get  to  Rome  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible, yet  I  feel  I  made  a  great  mistake  in  leaving 
you  behind.  But  as  it  seemed  to  be  your  wish  not 
to  make  the  voyage  until  your  health  was  restored, 
I  approved  your  decision.  Nor  do  I  think  otherwise 
now,  if  you  are  still  of  the  same  opinion.  But  if  here- 
after, when  you  are  able  to  eat  as  usual,  you  think 
you  can  follow  me  here,  it  is  for  you  to  decide.     I  sent 

*  The  triumph  for  the  victory  gained  under  his  nominal  com- 
mand over  the  hill-tribes  in  Cilicia,  during  his  governorship  of 
that  province  (p.  68). 


I 


TIRO,  135 

Mario  to  you,  telling  him  either  to  join  me  with  you 
as  soon  as  possible,  or,  if  you  are  delayed,  to  come 
back  here  at  once.  But  be  assured  of  this,  that  if  it 
can  be  so  without  risk  to  your  health,  there  is  nothing 
I  wish  so  much  as  to  have  you  with  me.  Only,  if  you 
feel  it  necessary  for  your  recovery  to  stay  a  little 
longer  at  Patrae,  there  is  nothing  I  wish  so  much  as 
for  you  to  get  -well.  If  you  sail  at  once,  you  will 
catch  us  at  Leucas.  But  if  you  want  to  get  well  first, 
take  care  to  secure  pleasant  companions,  fine  weather, 
and  a  good  ship.  Mind  this,  my  good  Tiro,  if  you 
love  me — let  neither  Mario's  visit  nor  this  letter  hurry 
you.  By  doing  what  is  best  for  your  own  health,  you 
will  be  best  obeying  my  directions.  Consider  these 
points  with  your  usual  good  sense.  I  miss  you  very 
much ;  but  then  I  love  you,  and  my  affection  makes 
me  wish  to  see  you  well,  just  as  my  want  of  you 
makes  me  long  to  see  you  as  soon  as  possible.  But 
the  first  point  is  the  most  important.  Above  all, 
therefore,  take  care  to  get  well :  of  all  your  innumer- 
able services  to  me,  this  will  be  the  most  acceptable." 
Cicero  writes  to  him  continually  during  his  own 
journey  homewards  with  the  most  thoughtful  kind- 
ness, begs  that  he  will  be  cautious  as  to  what  vessel 
he  sails  in,  and  recommends  specially  one  very  careful 
captain.  He  has  left  a  horse  and  a  mule  ready  for 
him  when  he  lands  at  Brundusium.  Then  he  hears 
that  Tiro  had  been  foolish  enough  to  go  to  a  concert, 
or  something  of  the  kind,  before  he  was  strong,  for 
which  he  mildly  reproves  him.  He  has  written  to  the 
physician  to  spar«  no  care  or  pains,  and  to  charge, 


136  CICERO'S  CORRESPONDENCE. 

apparently,  what  he  pleases.  Several  of  his  letters  to 
his  friend  Atticus,  at  this  date,  speak  in  the  most 
anxious  and  affectionate  terms  of  the  serious  illness  of 
this  faithful  servant.  Just  as  he  and  his  party  are 
starting  from  Leucas,  they  send  a  note  "  from  Cicero 
and  his  son,  and  Quintus  the  elder  and  younger,  to 
their  best  and  kindest  Tiro."  Then  from  Rome  comes 
a  letter  in  the  name  of  the  whole  family,  wife  and 
daughter  included  : — 

"  Marcus  Tullius  Cicero,  and  Cicero  the  younger,  and 
Terentia,  and  TuUia,  and  Brother  Quintus,  and 
Quintus's  Son,  to  Tiro  send  greeting. 

"  Although  I  miss  your  able  and  willing  service 
every  moment,  still  it  is  not  on  my  own  account  so  much 
as  yours  that  I  am  sorry  you  are  not  well.  But 
as  your  illness  has  now  taken  the  form  of  a  quartan 
fever  (for  so  Curius  writes),  I  hope,  if  you  take  care  of 
yourself,  you  will  soon  be  stronger.  Only  be  sure,  if 
you  have  any  kindness  for  me,  not  to  trouble  yourself 
about  anything  else  just  now,  except  how  to  get  well 
as  soon  as  may  be.  I  am  quite  aware  how  much  you 
regret  not  being  with  me ;  but  everything  will  go 
right  if  you  get  well.  I  would  not  have  you  hurr}^, 
or  undergo  the  annoj^ance  of  sea-sickness  while  you 
are  weak,  or  risk  a  sea-voyage  in  winter."  Then  he 
tells  him  all  the  news  from  Rome ;  how  there  had 
been  quite  an  ovation  on  his  arrival  there  ;  how  Caesar 
was  (he  thought)  growing  dangerous  to  the  state ;  and 
how  his  own  coveted  "  triumph  "  was  still  postponed. 
"  All  this,"  he  says,  "  I  thought  you  would  like  to 


TIRO  AND  SOSITHEUS.  137 

know."  Then  he  concludes:  "Over  and  over  again, 
I  beg  you  to  take  care  to  get  well,  and  to  send  me  a 
letter  whenever  you  have  an  opportunity.  Farewell, 
ac'ain  and  a^ain." 

Tiro  got  well,  and  outlived  his  kind  master,  who, 
very  soon  after  this,  presented  him  with  his  freedom. 
It  is  to  him  that  we  are  said  to  be  indebted  for  the 
preservation  and  publication  of  Cicero's  correspond- 
ence. He  wrote,  also,  a  biography  of  him,  which 
Plutarch  had  seen,  and  of  which  he  probably  made 
use  in  his  own  '  Life  of  Cicero,'  but  which  has  not 
come  down  to  us. 

There  was  another  of  his  household  for  whom 
Cicero  had  the  same  aifection.  This  was  Sositheus, 
also  a  slave,  but  a  man,  like  Tiro,  of  some  considerable 
education,  whom  he  employed  as  his  reader.  His 
death  aflPected  Cicero  quite  as  the  loss  of  a  friend. 
Indeed,  his  anxiety  is  such,  that  his  Eoman  dignity 
is  almost  ashamed  of  it.  "I  grieve,"  he  says,  " more 
than  I  ought  for  a  mere  slave."  Just  as  one  might 
now  apologise  for  making  too  much  fuss  about  a 
favourite  dog ;  for  the  slave  was  looked  upon  in 
scarcely  a  higher  light  in  civilised  Eome.  They  spoke 
of  him  in  the  neuter  gender,  as  a  chattel ;  and  it  was 
gravely  discussed,  in  case  of  danger  in  a  storm  at  sea, 
which  it  would  be  right  first  to  cast  overboard  to 
lighten  the  ship,  a  valuable  horse  or  an  indifferent 
.slave.  Hortensius,  the  rival  advocate  who  has  been 
mentioned,  a  man  of  more  luxurious  habits  and  less 
kindly  spirit  than  Cicero,  who  was  said  to  feed  the 
pet  lampreys  in  his  stews  much  better  than  he  did  his 


138  CICERO'S  CORRESPOXDENCE. 

slaves,  and  to  liave  shed  tears  at  the  death  of  one  of 
these  ugly  favourites,  would  have  probably  laughed  at 
Cicero's  concern  for  Sositheus  and  Tiro. 

But  indeed  every  glimpse  of  this  kind  which  Cicero's 
correspondence  affords  us  gives  token  of  a  kindly  heart, 
and  makes  us  long  to  know  something  more.  Some 
have  suspected  him  of  a  want  of  filial  affection,  owing 
to  a  somewhat  abrupt  and  curt  announcement  in  a 
letter  to  Atticus  of  his  father's  death  ;  and  his  stanch 
defenders  propose  to  adopt,  with  Madvig,  the  reading, 
discessit — "left  us,"  instead  of  decessit  —  "died." 
There  really  seems  no  occasion.  Unless  Atticus  knew 
the  father  intimately,  there  was  no  need  to  dilate  upon 
the  old  man's  death ;  and  Cicero  mentions  subsequently, 
in  terms  quite  as  brief,  the  marriage  of  his  daughter 
and  the  birth  of  his  son — events  in  which  we  are 
assured  he  felt  deeply  interested.  If  any  further  ex- 
planation of  this  seeming  coldness  be  required,  the  fol- 
lowing remarks  of  Mr  Forsyth  are  apposite  and  true  : — 

"  The  truth  is,  that  what  we  call  sentiment  was  almost 
unknown  to  the  ancient  Eomans,  in  whose  writings  it 
would  be  as  vain  to  look  for  it  as  to  look  for  traces  of 
Gothic  architecture  amongst  classic  ruins.  And  this  is 
something  more  than  a  mere  illustration.  It  suggests  a 
reason  for  the  absence.  Eomance  and  sentiment  came 
from  the  dark  forests  of  the  North,  when  Scandinavia  and 
Germany  poured  forth  their  hordes  to  subdue  and  people 
the  Roman  Empire.  The  life  of  a  citizen  of  the  Republic 
of  Rome  was  essentially  a  public  life.  The  love  of  country 
was  there  carried  to  an  extravagant  length,  and  was  para- 
mount to,  and  almost  swallowed  up,  the  j)rivate  and  social 
affections.     The  state  was  everything,  the  individual  com- 


I 


HIS  FATHERS  DEATH.  139 

paratively  nothing.  In  one  of  the  letters  of  the  Emperor 
Marcus  Aurelius  to  Fronto,  there  is  a  passage  in  which  he 
says  that  the  Roman  hmguage  had  no  word  corresponding 
with  the  Greek  ^iXoo-Topyia,  —  the  affectionate  love  for 
parents  and  children.  Upon  this  Niebuhr  remarks  that  the 
feeling  was  *  not  a  Roman  one  ;  hut  Cicero  possessed  it  in 
a  degree  which  few  Romans  could  comprehend,  and  hence 
he  was  laughed  at  for  the  grief  which  he  felt  at  the  death 
of  his  daughter  TuJlia.' " 


CHAPTER  X. 

ESSAYS  ON  '  OLD  AGE '  AND  '  FRIENDSHIP.' 

The  treatise  on  '  Old  Age,'  which  is  thrown  into  the 
form  of  a  dialogue,  is  said  to  have  been  suggested  by 
the  opening  of  Plato's  '  Republic,'  in  which  Cephalus 
touches  so  pleasantly  on  the  enjoyments  peculiar  to 
that  time  of  life.  So  far  as  light  and  graceful  treat- 
ment of  his  subject  goes,  the  Roman  essayist  at  least 
does  not  fall  short  of  his  model.  Montaigne  said  of 
it,  that  "  it  made  one  long  to  grow  old;"  *  but  Mon- 
taigne was  a  Frenchman,  and  such  sentiment  was 
quite  in  his  way.  The  dialogue,  whether  it  produce  this 
effect  on  many  readers  or  not,  is  very  pleasant  read- 
ing: and  when  we  remember  that  the  author  wrote 
it  when  he  was  exactly  in  his  grand  climacteric,  and 
addressed  it  to  his  friend  Atticus,  who  was  within  a 
year  of  the  same  age,  we  get  that  element  of  personal 
interest  which  makes  all  writings  of  the  kind  more 
attractive.  The  argument  in  defence  of  the  paradox 
tbat  it  is  a  good  thing  to  grow  old,  proceeds  upon  the 
only  possible  ground,  the  theory  of  compensations.  It 
*  *'  II  donne  I'appetit  de  vieiller." 


ESSAY  ON  'OLD  AGE.'  141 

is  put  into  the  mouth  of  Cato  the  Censor,  who  had 
died  about  a  century  before,  and  who  is  introduced  as 
giving  a  kind  of  lecture  on  the  subject  to  his  young 
friends  Scipio  and  Lselius,  in  his  eighty-fourth  year. 
He  was  certainly  a  remarkable  example  in  his  own 
case  of  its  being  possible  to  grow  old  gracefully  and 
usefully,  if,  as  he  tells  us,  he  was  at  that  age  still  able 
to  take  part  in  the  debates  in  the  Senate,  was  busy 
collecting  materials  for  the  early  history  of  Eome,  had 
quite  lately  begun  the  study  of  Greek,  could  enjoy 
a  country  dinner-partv,  and  had  been  thinking  of 
taking  lessons  in  playing  on  the  lyre. 

He  states  four  reasons  why  old  age  is  so  commonly 
considered  miserable.  First,  it  unfits  us  for  active  em- 
ployment; secondly,  it  weakens  the  bodily  strength; 
thirdly,  it  deprives  us  of  nearly  all  pleasures ;  fourthly 
and  lastly,  it  is  drawing  near  death.  As  to  the  first,  the 
old  senator  argues  very  fairly  that  very  much  of  the 
more  important  business  of  life  is  not  only  transacted 
by  old  men,  but  in  point  of  fact,  as  is  confessed  by  tlie 
very  name  and  composition  of  the  Eoman  Senate,  it  is 
thought  safest  to  intrust  it  to  the  elders  in  the  state. 
The  pilot  at  the  helm  may  not  be  able  to  climb  the 
mast  and  run  up  and  down  the  deck  like  the  younger 
sailor,  but  he  steers  none  the  worse  for  being,  old.  He 
quotes  some  well-known  examples  of  this  from  Eoman 
annals ;  examples  which  might  be  matched  by  obvious 
instances  in  modern  English  history.  The  defence 
which  he  makes  of  old  age  against  the  second  charge 
— loss  of  muscular  vigour — is  rather  more  of  the 
nakire  of  special  pleading.     He  says  little  more  than 


142  USSAY  ON  'OLD  AGE.' 

that  mere  muscular  strength,  after  all,  is  not  much 
wanted  for  our  happiness  :  that  there  are  always  com- 
parative degrees  of  strength ;  and  that  an  old  man 
need  no  more  make  himself  unhappy  because  he  has 
not  the  strength  of  a  young  man,  than  the  latter  does 
because  he  has  not  the  strength  of  a  bull  or  an  ele- 
phant. It  was  very  well  for  the  great  wrestler  Milo 
to  be  able  to  carry  an  ox  round  the  arena  on  his 
shoulders;  but,  on  the  whole,  a  man  does  not  often 
want  to  walk  about  with  a  bullock  on  his  back. 
The  old  are  said,  too,  to  lose  their  memory.  Cato 
thinks  they  can  remember  pretty  well  all  that  they 
care  to  remember.  They  are  not  apt  to  forget  Avho 
owes  them  money ;  and  "  I  never  knew  an  old  man 
forget,"  he  says,  "  where  he  had  buried  his  gold." 
Then  as  to  the  pleasures  of  the  senses,  which  age  un- 
doubtedly diminishes  our  power  of  enjoying.  "  This," 
says  Cato,  "  is  really  a  privilege,  not  a  deprivation ; 
to  be  delivered  from  the  yoke  of  such  tyrants  as  our 
passions — to  feel  that  we  have  '  got  our  discharge ' 
from  such  a  warfare — is  a  blessing  for  which  men  ought 
rather  to  be  grateful  to  their  advancing  years."  And 
the  respect  and  authority  which  is  by  general  consent 
conceded  to  old  age,  is  a  pleasure  more  than  equivalent 
to  the  vanished  pleasures  of  youth. 

There  is  one  consideration  which  the  author  has  not 
placed  amongst  his  four  chief  disadvantages  of  gTowing 
old, — which,  however,  he  did  not  forget,  for  he  notices 
it  incidentally  in  the  dialogue, — the  feeling  that  we 
are  growing  less  agreeable  to  our  friends,  that  our  com- 
pany is  less  sought  after,  and  that  we  are,  in  short, 


ESSAY  OX  'OLD  AGE.'  143 

becoming  rather  ciphers  in  .society.  Tliis,  in  a  con- 
dition of  high  civilisation,  is  really  perhaps  felt  by 
most  of  us  as  the  hardest  to  bear  of  all  the  ills  to 
which  old  age  is  liable.  We  should  not  care  so  much 
about  the  younger  generation  rising  up  and  making  us 
look  old,  if  we  did  not  feel  that  they  are  "  pushing  us 
from  our  stools."  Cato  admits  that  he  had  heard  some 
old  men  complain  that  "  they  were  now  neglected  by 
those  who  had  once  courted  their  society,"  and  he 
quotes  a  passage  from  the  comic  poet  Cfecilius  : — 

**  This  is  the  bitterest  pang  in  growing  old, — 
To  feel  that  we  grow  hateful  to  our  fellows." 

But  he  dismisses  the  question  briefly  in  his  own  case 
by  observing  with  some  complacency  that  he  does  not 
think  his  young  friend^  find  his  company  disagreeable 
—  an  assertion  which  Scipio  and  Ltelius,  who  occa- 
sionally take  part  in  the  dialogue,  are  far  too  well 
bred  to  contradict.  He  remarks  also,  sensibly  enough, 
that  though  some  old  persons  are  no  doubt  considered 
disagreeable  company,  this  is  in  great  measure  their 
own  fault :  that  testiness  and  ill  -  nature  (qualities 
which,  as  he  observes,  do  not  usually  improve  with 
age)  are  always  disagreeable,  and  that  such  persons 
attributed  to  their  advancing  years  what  was  in  truth 
the  consequence  of  their  unamiable  tempers.  It  is  not 
all  wine  which  turns  sour  with  age,  nor  yet  all  tem- 
pers ;  much  depends  on  the  original  quality.  The  old 
Censor  lays  down  some  maxims  which,  like  the  pre- 
ceding, have  served  as  texts  for  a  good  many  modern 
writers,   and    may    be    found    expanded,  diluted,   or 


144  ESSAY  ON  'OLD  AGE. 

strengthened,  in  the  essays  of  Addison  and  Johnson, 
and  in  many  of  their  followers  of  less  repute.  "  I 
never  could  assent,"  says  Cato,  "  to  that  ancient  and 
much-bepraised  proverb, — that  *  you  must  become  an 
old  man  early,  if  you  wish  to  be  an  old  man  long.' " 
Yet  it  was  a  maxim  which  was  very  much  acted  upon 
by  modern  Englishmen  a  generation  or  two  back. 
It  was  then  thought  almost  a  moral  duty  to  retire 
into  old  age,  and  to  assume  all  its  disabilities  as  well  as 
its  privileges,  after  sixty  years  or  even  earlier.  At 
present  the  world  sides  with  Cato,  and  rushes  perhaps 
into  the  other  extreme  ;  for  any  line  at  which  old  age 
now  begins  would  be  hard  to  trace  either  in  dress  or 
deportment.  "  "We  must  resist  old  age,  and  fight 
against  it  as  a  disease,"  Strong  words  from  the  old 
Roman  ;  but,  undoubtedly,  so  long  as  we  stop  short 
of  the  attempt  to  affect  juvenility,  Cato  is  right.  We 
should  keep  ourselves  as  young  as  possible.  He  speaks 
shrewd  sense,  again,  when  he  says — "  As  I  like  to  see 
a  young  man  who  has  something  old  about  him,  so  I 
like  to  see  an  old  man  in  whom  there  remains  some- 
thing of  the  youth :  and  he  who  follows  this  maxim 
may  become  an  old  man  in  body,  but  never  in  heart." 
"  What  a  blessing  it  is,"  says  Southey,  "  to  have  a 
boy's  heart ! "  Do  we  not  all  know  these  charming 
old  people,  to  whom  the  young  take  almost  as  heartily 
as  to  their  own  equals  in  age,  who  are  the  favourite 
consultees  in  all  amusements,  the  confidants  in  all 
troubles  ? 

Cato  is  made  to  place  a  great  part  of  his  own  enjoy- 
ment, in  these  latter  years  of  his,  in  the  cultivation  of 


ESSAV  ON  'OLD  AGE:  145 

his  farm  and  garden  (lie  had  written,  we  must  remem- 
ber, a  treatise  ^De  Re  Rustica,' — a  kind  of  Roman 
*  Book  of  the  Farm,'  which  we  have  still  remaining). 
He  is  enthusiastic  in  his  description  of  the  pleasures 
of  a  country  gentleman's  Ufe,  and,  like  a  good  farmer, 
as  no  doubt  he  was,  becomes  eloquent  upon  the  grand 
subject  of  manures.  Gardening  is  a  pursuit  which  he 
holds  in  equal  honour — that  "  purest  of  human  plea- 
sures," as  Bacon  calls  it.  On  the  subject  of  the  country 
life  generally  he  confesses  an  inclinaticm  to  become 
garrulous — the  one  failing  which  he  admits  may  be 
fairly  laid  to  the  charge  of  old  age.  The  jjicture  of 
the  way  of  living  of  a  Roman  gentleman-farmer,  as  he 
draws  it,  must  have  presented  a  strong  contrast  with 
the  artificial  city-life  of  Rome. 

"  Where  the  master  of  the  house  is  a  good  and  care- 
ful manager,  his  wine-cellar,  his  oil-stores,  his  larder, 
are  always  well  stocked  ;  there  is  a  fulness  throughout 
the  whole  establishment;  pigs,  kids,  lambs,  poultry, 
milk,  cheese,  honey, — all  are  in  abundance.  The  pro- 
duce of  the  garden  is  always  eqaal,  as  our  country-folk 
say,  to  a  double  course.  And  all  these  good  things 
acquire  a  second  relish  from  the  voluntary  labours  of 
fowling  and  the  chase.  What  need  to  dwell  upon 
the  charm  of  the  green  fields,  the  well-ordered  planta- 
tions, the  beauty  of  the  vineyards  and  olive-groves  ? 
In  short,  nothing  can  be  more  luxuriant  in  produce, 
or  more  delightful  to  the  eye,  than  a  well-cultivated 
estate ;  and,  to  the  enjoyment  of  this,  old  age  is  so  far 
from  being  any  hindrance,  that  it  rather  invites  and 
allures  us  to  such  pursuits." 

A.  c.  vol.  ix.  K 


146  USSAY  ON  'OLD  AGE: 

He  has  no  patience  with  what  has  been  called  the 
despondency  of  old  age — the  feeling,  natural  enough  at 
that  time  of  life,  but  not  desirable  to  be  encouraged,  that 
there  is  no  longer  any  room  for  hope  or  promise  in  tho 
future  which  gives  so  much  of  its  interest  to  the  present. 
He  will  not  listen  to  the  poet  when  he  says  again — 

"  He  plants  the  tree  that  shall  not  see  the  fruit." 

The  answer  which  he  would  make  has  been  often  put 
into  other  and  more  elaborate  language,  but  has  a 
simple  grandeur  of  its  own.  "  If  any  should  ask  the 
aged  cultivator  for  whom  he  plants,  let  him  not  hesi- 
tate to  make  this  reply, — '  For  the  immortal  gods,  who, 
as  they  willed  me  to  inherit  these  possessions  from  my 
forefathers,  so  would  have  me  hand  them  on  to  those 
that  shall  come  after.'  " 

The  old  Eoman  had  not  the  horror  of  country  society 
which  so  many  civilised  Englishmen  either  have  or 
affect.  "  1  like  a  talk,"  he  says,  "  over  a  cup  of  wine." 
*Ev^en  when  I  am  down  at  my  Sabine  estate,  I  daily 
ma\'e  one  at  a  party  of  my  country  neighbours,  and 
we  prolong  our  conversation  very  frequently  far  into 
the  night."  The  words  are  put  intoCato's  mouth,  but 
the  voice  is  the  well-known  voice  of  Cicero.  We  find 
him  here,  as  in  his  letters,  persuading  himself  into  the 
belief  that  the  secret  of  happiness  is  to  be  found  in  the 
retirement  of  the  country.  And  his  genial  and  social 
nature  beams  through  it  all.  We  are  reminded  of  his 
half-serious  complaints  to  Atticus  *  of  his  importunate 
visitors  at  Formise,  the  dinner-parties  which  he  was,  as 

•  See  p.  '44. 


i:SSAY  ON  'OLD  AGE.'  147 

we  say  now,  "  obliged  to  go  to,"  and  which  he  so  evi- 
dently enjoyed.* 

He  is  careful,  however,  to  remind  his  readers  that 
old  age,  to  be  really  either  happy  or  venerable,  must 
not  be  the  old  age  of  the  mere  voluptuary  or  the  de- 
bauchee ;  that  the  grey  head,  in  order  to  be,  even  in 
his  pagan  sense,  "a  crown  of  glory,"  must  have  been 
"found  in  the  Avay  of  righteousness."  Shakespeare 
might  have  learned  froui  Cicero  in  these  points  the 
moral  which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  his  Adam — 
"  Therefore  mine  age  is  as  a  lusty  winter. 
Frosty  but  kindly." 

It  is  a  miserable  old  age,  says  the  Eoman,  which  is 
obliged  to  appeal  to  its  grey  hairs  as  its  only  claim 
to  the  respect  of  its  juniors.     "  Neither  hoar  hairs  nor 
wrinkles  can  arrogate   reverence  as   their  right.      It 
is  the  hfe  whose  opening  years  have  been  honourably 
spent  which  reaps  the  reward  of  reverence  at  its  close." 
In  discussing  the  last  of  the  evils  which  accompany 
old  age,  the  near  approach  of  death,  Cicero  rises  to 
something  higher  than  his  usual  level.     His  Cato  will 
not  have  death  to  be  an  evil  at  all ;  it  is  to  him  the 
escaping  from  "  the  prison  of  the  body,"— the  "  getting 
the  sight  of  land  at  last  after  a  long  voyage,  and  com- 
ing in'to  port."     Kay,  he  does  not  admit  that  death  is 

*  "  A  cler^^yraaii  was  complaining  of  the  want  of  society  in 
the  countiy  where  he  lived,  and  said,  'They  talk  of  runts' 
{ie.,  yomig  cows).  'Sir,'  said  Mr  Salnsbnry,  'Mr  Johnson 
would  learn  to  talk  of  nints  ; '  meaning  that  I  was  a  man  who 
wonld  make  the  most  of  my  situation,  whatever  it  was."— Bos- 
well's  Life.     Cicero  was  like  Dr  Johnson. 


148  JESS  AY   ON  'OLD  AGE.' 

deatli.  "  I  have  never  been  able  to  persuade  myself," 
he  says,  quoting  the  words  of  Cyrus  in  Xenophon,  "that 
our  spirits  were  alive  while  they  were  in  these  mortal 
bodies,  and  died  only  when  they  departed  out  of  them; 
or  that  the  spirit  then  only  becomes  void  of  sense 
when  it  escapes  from  a  senseless  body ;  but  that  rather 
when  freed  from  all  admixture  of  corporality,  it  is  pure 
and  uncontaminated,  then  it  most  truly  has  sense." 
*'  I  am  fully  persuaded,"  he  says  to  his  young  listeners, 
"  that  your  two  fathers,  my  old  and  dearly  -  loved 
friends,  are  living  now,  and  living  that  life  which 
only  is  worthy  to  be  so  called."  And  he  winds  up  the 
dialogue  with  the  very  beautiful  apostrophe,  one  of  the 
last  utterances  of  the  philosopher's  heart,  well  known, 
yet  not  too  well  known  to  be  here  quoted — 

"  It  likes  me  not  to  mourn  over  departing  life,  as 
many  men,  and  men  of  learning,  have  done.  I^orcan 
I  regret  that  I  have  lived,  since  I  have  so  lived  that  I 
may  trust  I  was  not  born  in  vain  ;  and  I  dejDart  out  of 
life  as  out  of  a  temporary  lodging,  not  as  out  of  my 
home.  For  nature  has  given  it  to  us  as  an  inn  to 
tarry  at  by  the  way,  not  as  a  place  to  abide  in.  0 
glorious  day !  when  I  shall  set  out  to  join  that  blessed 
company  and  assembly  of  disembodied  sf)irits,  and 
quit  this  crowd  and  rabble  of  Hfe  !  For  I  shall  go  my 
way,  not  only  to  those  great  men  of  whom  I  spoke, 
but  to  my  own  son  Cato,  than  whom  was  never  better 
man  born,  nor  more  full  of  dutiful  affection  ;  whose 
body  I  laid  on  the  funeral  pile — an  office  he  should 
rather  have  done  for  me. '^    But  his  spirit  has  never  left 

*  Burke  touches  the  same  key  in  speaking  of  his  son:  "I 


ass  AY  ON  'friendship:  149 

me  ;  it  still  looks  fondly  back  upon  me,  though  it  has 
(Tone  assuredly  into  those  abodes  where  he  knew  that 
I  myself  should  follow.  And  this  my  great  loss  I 
seemed  to  bear  with  calmness ;  not  that  I  bore  it  un- 
disturbed, but  that  I  still  consoled  myself  with  the 
thought  that  the  separation  between  us  could  not  be 
for  long.  And  if  I  err  in  this — in  that  I  believe  the 
spirits  of  men  to  be  immortal — I  err  willingly ;  nor 
would  I  have  this  mistaken  belief  of  mine  uprooted  so 
loner  as  I  shall  live.  But  if,  after  I  am  dead,  I  shall 
have  no  consciousness,  as  some  curious  philosophers 
assert,  then  I  am  not  afraid  of  dead  philosophers 
laughing  at  my  mistake." 

The  essay  on '  Friendship '  is  dedicated  by  the  author 
to  Atticus — an  appropriate  recognition,  as  he  says,  of 
the  long  and  intimate  friendship  which  had  existed 
between  themselves.  It  is  thrown,  like  the  other,  into 
the  form  of  a  dialogue.  The  principal  speaker  here  is 
one  of  the  listeners  in  the  former  case— Lselius,  sur- 
named  the  Wise — who  is  introduced  as  receiving  a  visit 
from  his  two  sons-in-law,  Fannius  and  Scaevola  (the 
great  lawyer  before  mentioned*),  soon  after  the  sudden 
death  of  his  great  friend,  the  younger  Scipio  Afri- 
canus.  Laelius  takes  the  occasion,  at  the  request  of  the 
"young  men,  to  give  them  his  views  and  opinions  on 
the  subject  of  Friendship  generally.     This  essay  is  per- 

live  in  an  inverted  order.     They  who  ought  to  have  succeeded 
me  have  gone  before  me  :  they  who  should  have  been  to  me  as 
posterity  are  in  the  place  of  ancestors." 
*  P.  6. 


150  ESSAY  ON  'FRIENDSHIP.' 

haps  more  original  than  that  upon  '  Old  Age,'  but  cer- 
tainly is  not  so  attractive  to  a  modern  reader.  Its 
great  merit  is  the  grace  and  polish  of  the  language ; 
but  tlie  arguments  brought  forward  to  prove  what  an 
excellent  thing  it  is  for  a  man  to  have  good  friends, 
and  plenty  of  them,  in  this  world,  and  the  rules  for  his 
behaviour  towards  them,  seem  to  us  somewhat^  trite 
and  commonplace,  whatever  might  have  been  their 
effect  upon  a  Roman  reader. 

Cicero  is  indebted  to  the  Greek  philosophers  for  the 
main  outlines  of  his  theory  of  friendship,  though  his 
acquaintance  with  the  works  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  was 
probably  exceedingly  superficial.  He  holds,  with  them, 
that  man  is  a  social  animal ;  that  "  we  are  so  constituted 
by  nature  that  there  must  be  some  degree  of  association 
between  us  all,  growing  closer  in  proportion  as  we  are 
brought  into  more  intimate  relations  one  with  another." 
So  that  the  social  bond  is  a  matter  of  instinctj  not  of 

I  calculation  ;  not  a  cold  commercial  contract  of_profit 
and  loss,  of  giving  and  receiving,  but  the  fuJLfilment 
of  one  of  the  yearnings  of  our  nature.  Here  he  is  in 
full  accordance  with  the  teaching  of  Aristotle,  who,  of 
all  the  various  kinds  of  friendship  to  which  he  allows 
the  common  name,  pronounces  that  which  is  founded 
merely  upon  interest — upon  mutual  interchange,  by 
tacit  agreement,  of  certain  benefits — to  be  the  least 
worthy  of  such  a  designation.  Friendship  is  defined 
by  Cicero  to  be  "thej)erfect  accord  upon  all  questions, 
religious  and  social,  together  with  mutual  goodwill  and 

^.^fijtjution."  This  "  perfect  accord,"  it  must  be  confessed, 
is  a  very  large  requirement.      He  follows    his  Creek 


ESSAY  ON  'friendship:  151 

masters  again  in  holding  that  true  friendship  can 
exist  only  amongst  the  good  ;  that,  in  fact,  all  friendship 
must  assume  that  there  is  something  good  and  lovable 
in  the  person  towards  whom  the  feeling  is  entertained  : 
it  may  occasionally  be  a  mistaken  assumption;  the 
good  quality  we  think  we  see  in  our  friend  may 
have  no  existence  save  in  our  own  partial  imagination  ; 
but  the  existence  of  the  counterfeit  is  an  incontestable 
evidence  of  the  true  original.  And  the  greatest  attrac- 
tion, and  therefore  the  truest  friendships,  wiU  always 
be  of  the  good  towards  the  good. 

He  admits,  however,  the  notorious  fact,  that  good 
persons  are  sometimes  disagreeable ;  and  he  confesses 
that  we  have  a  right  to  seek  in  our  friends  amiability 
as  well  as  moral  excellence.  "  Sweetness,"  he  says — 
anticipating,  as  all  these  ancients  so  provokingly  do, 
some  of  our  most  modern  popular  philosophers  — 
"  sweetness,  both  in  language  and  in  manner,  is  a  very 
powerful  attraction  in  the  formation  of  friendships." 
He  is  by  no  means  of  the  same  opinion  as  Sisyphus  in 
Lord  Lytton's  '  Tale  of  Miletus ' — 

"  Now,  then,  I  know  thou  really  art  my  friend, — 
None  but  true  friends  choose  such  unpleasant  words." 

He  admits  that  it  is  the  oflice  of  a  friend  to  tell  un- 
pleasant truths  sometimes  ;  but  there  should  be  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  this  indispensable  "  sweetness "  to 
temper  the  bitterness  of  the  advice.  There  are  some 
friends  who  are  continually  reminding  you  of  what 
they  have  done  for  you — "  a  disgusting  set  of  people 
verily  they  are,"  says  our  author.    And  there  are  others 


152  ESSAY  ON  'FRIENDSHIP: 

who  are  always  thinking  themselves  slighted ;  "  in 
which  case  there  is  generally  something  of  which  they 
are  conscious  in  themselves,  as  laying  them  open  to 
contemptuous  treatment." 

Cicero's  own  character  displays  itself  in  this  short 
treatise.  Here,  as  everywhere,  he  is  the  politician. 
He  shows  a  true  appreciation  of  the  duties  and  the 
qualifications  of  a  true  friend ;  but  his  own  thoughts 
are  running  upon  political  friendships.  Just  as  when, 
in  many  of  his  letters,  he  talks  about  "all  honest 
men,"  he  means  "our  party;"  so  here,  when  he  talks 
of  friends,  he  cannot  help  sliowing  that  it  was  of  the 
essence  of  friendship,  in  his  view,  to  hold  the  same 
political  opinions,  and  that  one  great  use  of  friends  was 
that  a  man  should  not  be  isolated,  as  he  had  sometimes 
feared  he  was,  in  his  political  course.  When  he  puts 
forward  the  old  instances  of  Coriolanus  and  Gracchus, 
and  discusses  the  question  whether  their  "  friends"  were 
or  were  not  bound  to  aid  them  in  their  treasonable 
designs  against  the  state,  he  was  surely  thinking  of  the 
factions  of  his  own  times,  and  the  troublesome  brother- 
hoods which  had  gathered  round  Catiline  and  Clodius. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  the  advice  which  he  makes  Laelius 
give  to  his  younger  relatives  is  good  for  all  ages,  modern 
or  ancient :  "  There  is  nothing  in  this  world  more  valu- 
able than  friendship."  "  ISText  to  the  immediate  blessing 
and  providence  of  Almighty  God,"  Lord  Clarendon  was 
often  heard  to  say,  "  I  owe  all  the  little  I  know,  and 
the  little  good  that  is  in  me,  to  the  friendships  and 
conversation  I  have  still  been  used  to,  of  the  most  excel- 
lent men  in  their  several  kinds  that  lived  in  that  a^je." 


CnAITEPc    XI 

CTCERO'S     PHILOSOPHY. 

'the  true  exds   of  life.'* 

Philosophy  was  to  the  Eoman  -what  religion  is  to  us. 
It  professed  to  answer,  so  far  as  it  might  be  answered, 
Pilate's  question,  "What  is  truth  1"  or  to  teach  men, 
as  Cicero  described  it,  "  the  knowledge  of  things 
human  and  divine."  Hence  the  philosopher  invests 
his  subject  with  all  attributes  of  dignity.  To  him 
Philosophy  brings  all  blessings  in  her  train.  She  is 
the  guide  of  life,  the  medicine  for  his  sorrows,  "  the 
fountain-head  of  all  perfect  eloquence — the  mother  of 
all  good  deeds  and  good  words."  He  invokes  with 
affectionate  reverence  the  great  name  of  Socrates — the 
sage  who  had  "  first  drawn  wisdom  down  from  heaven." 
ISTo  man  ever  approached  his  subject  more  richly 
laden  with  philosophic  lore  than  Cicero.  Snatcliiug 
every  leisure  moment  that  he  could  from  a  busy  life, 
he  devotes  it  to  the  study  of  the  great  minds  of  former 
ages.     Indeed,  he  held  this  study  to  be  the  duty  of 

*  'De  Fiuibus  Bonorum  et  i\Ialorum.'       J> 


154  CICERO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

tlie  jjcrfect  orator ;  a  knowledge  of  tlie  human  mind 
was  one  of  his  essential  qualifications.  I*^or  could  he 
conceive  of  real  eloquence  without  it ;  for  his  defini- 
tion of  eloquence  is,  "  wisdom  speaking  fluently."  * 
But  such  studies  were  also  suited  to  his  own  natural 
tastes.  And  as  years  passed  on,  and  he  grew  weary  of 
civil  discords  and  was  harassed  by  domestic  troubles, 
the  great  orator  turns  his  back  upon  the  noisy  city, 
and  takes  his  parchments  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  to  be 
the  friends  of  his  councils  and  the  companions  of  his 
solitude,  seeking  by  their  light  to  discover  Truth, 
which  Demoeritus  had  declared  to  be  buried  in  the 
depths  of  the  sea. 

Yet,  after  all,  he  professes  to  do  little  more  than 
translate.  So  conscious  is  he  that  it  is  to  Greece  that 
E,ome  is  indebted  for  all  her  literature,  and  so  con- 
scious, also,  on  the  part  of  his  countrymen,  of  what  he 
terms  "  an  arrogant  disdain  for  everything  national," 
that  he  apologises  to  his  readers  for  writing  for  the 
million  in  their  motlier-tongue.  Yet  he  is  not  content, 
as  he  says,  to  be  "  a  mere  interpreter."  He  thought 
that  by  an  eclectic  process — adopting  and  rearranging 
such  of  the  doctrines  of  his  Greek  masters  as  approved 
themselves  to  his  own  judgment — he  might  make  his 
own  work  a  substitute  for  theirs.  His  ambition  is  to 
achieve  what  he  might  well  regard  as  the  hardest  of 
tasks — a  popular  treatise  on  philosophy  ;  and  he  has 
certainly  succeeded.  He  makes  no  pretence  to  origi- 
nality; all  he  can  do  is,  as  he  expresses  it,  "to  ariay 
Plato  in  a  Latin  dress,"  and  "  present  this  stranger 

*  "Copiose  loquens  sapientia," 


'THE   TRUE   ENDS  OF  LIFE:  155 

from  beyond  the  seas  with  the  freedom  of  his  native 
city."  And  so  this  treatise  on  the  Ends  of  Life — a 
orave  question  even  to  the  most  careless  thinker — is, 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  both  dramatic  and  rhetor- 
ical. Representatives  of  the  two  great  schools  of  philo- 
sophy—the Stoics  and  Epicureans — plead  and  counter- 
plead in  his  pages,  each  in  their  turn;  and  their 
arguments  are  based  on  principles  broad  and  universal 
enough  to  be  valid  even  now.  For  now,  as  then, 
men  are  inevitably  separated  into  two  classes — amiable 
men  of  ease,  who  guide  their  conduct  by  the  rudder- 
strings  of  pleasure — who  for  the  most  part  "  leave  the 
world"  (as  has  been  finely  said)  "in  the  world's  debt, 
having  consumed  much  and  produced  nothing;"*  or, 
on  the  other  hand,  zealous  men  of  duty, — 

"  Who  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days," 

and  act  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  honour  or 
their  conscience.  In  practice,  if  not  in  theory,  a  man 
must  be  either  Stoic  or  Epicurean. 

Each  school,  in  this  dialogue,  is  allowed  to  plead  its 
own  cause.  "Listen"  (says  the  Epicurean)  "to  the 
voice  of  nature  that  bids  you  pursue  pleasure,  and  do 
not  be  misled  by  that  vulgar  conception  of  pleasure  as 
mere  sensual  enjoyment ;  our  opponents  misrepresent 
us  when  they  say  that  we  advocate  this  as  the  highest 
good  ;  we  hold,  on  the  contrary,  that  men  often  obtain 
the  greatest  pleasure  by  neglecting  this  baser  kind. 
Your  highest  instances  of  martyrdom  —  of  Decii 
devoting  themselves  for  their  country,  of  consuls 
*  Lord  Derby. 


156  CICERaS  PHILOSOPHY. 

l)utting  their  sons  to  death,  to  preserve  discipline — 
are  not  disinterested  acts  of  sacrifice,  hut  the  choice 
of  a  present  pain  in  order  to  procure  a  future  pleasure. 
Vice  is  hut  ignorance  of  real  enjoyment.  Temperance 
alone  can  hring  peace  of  mind ;  and  the  wicked,  even 
if  they  escape  public  censure,  '  are  racked  night  and 
day  by  the  anxieties  sent  upon  them  by  the  immortal 
gods.'  We  do  not,  in  this,  contradict  your  Stoic  ;  we, 
too,  affirm  that  only  the  wise  man  is  really  happy. 
Happiness  is  as  impossible  for  a  mind  distracted  by 
passions,  as  for  a  city  divided  by  contending  fac- 
tions. The  terrors  of  death  haunt  the  guilty  wretch, 
'  who  finds  out  too  late  that  he  has  devoted  him- 
self to  money  or  power  or  glory  to  no  purpose.'  But 
the  wise  man's  life  is  unalloyed  happiness.  Eejoicing 
in  a  clear  conscience,  '  he  remembers  the  past  with 
gratitude,  enjoys  the  blessings  of  the  present,  and 
disregards  the  future.'  Thus  the  moral  to  be  drawn 
is  that  which  Horace  (himself,  as  he  expresses  it,  '  one 
of  the  litter  of  Epicurus ')  impresses  on  his  fair  friend 
Leuconoe : — 

'  Strain  your  wine,  and  prove  your  wisdom  ;  life  is  short ; 

should  hope  he  more  ? 
In  the  moment  of  our  talking  envious  time  has  slipped 

away. 
Seize  the  present,  trust  to-morrow  e'en  as  little  as  you  may.' " 

Passing  on  to  the  second  book  of  the  treatise,  we 
hear  the  advocate  of  the  counter-doctrine.  Why,  ex- 
claims the  Stoic,  introduce  Pleasure  to  the  councils  of 
Virtue  1  Why  uphold  a  theory  so  dangerous  in  prac- 
tice ?     Your  Epicurean  soon  turns  Epicure,  and  a  class 


'THE  TRUE  ENDS  OF  LIFE.'  157 

of  men  start  up  who  have  never  seen  the  sun  rise  or 
set,  who  squander  fortunes  on  cooks  and  perfumers, 
on  costly  plate  and  gorgeous  rooms,  and  ransack  sea 
and  land  for  delicacies  to  supply  their  feasts.  Epicurus 
gives  his  disciples  a  dangerous  discretion  in  their  choice. 
There  is  no  harm  in  luxury  (he  tells  us)  provided  it  be 
free  from  inordinate  desires.  But  who  is  to  fix  the 
limit  to  such  vague  concessions  % 

Kay,  more,  he  degrades  men  to  the  level  of  the 
brute  creation.  In  his  view%  there  is  nothing  admir- 
able beyond  this  pleasure — no  sensation  or  emotion  of 
the  mind,  no  soundness  or  health  of  body.  And  what 
is  this  pleasure  which  he  makes  of  such  high  account  1 
How  short-lived  wdiile  it  lasts  !  how  ignoble  when  we 
recall  it  afterwards  !  But  even  the  common  feeling 
and  sentiments  of  men  condemn  so  selfish  a  doctrine. 
"We  are  naturally  led  to  uphold  truth  and  abhor 
deceit,  to  admare  Begulus  in  his  tortures,  and  to 
despise  a  lifetime  of  inglorious  ease.  And  then  fol- 
lows a  passage  which  echoes  the  stirring  lines  of 
Scott— 

"  Sound,  sound  the  clarion,  fill  the  fife ! 
To  all  the  sensual  world  proclaim, 
One  crowded  hour  of  glorious  life 
Is  worth  an  age  without  a  name." 

Do  not  then  (concludes  the  Stoic)  take  good  words  in 
your  mouth,  and  prate  before  apjilauding  citizens  of 
honour,  duty,  and  so  forth,  while  you  make  your 
private  lives  a  mere  selfish  calculation  of  exj^ediency. 
We  were  surely  born  for  nobler  ends  than  this,  and  none 


158  CICERO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

who  is  worthy  the  name  of  a  man  would  subscribe  to 
doctrines  which  destroy  all  honour  and  all  chivalry. 
The  heroes  of  old  time  won  their  immortality  not  by 
weighing  pleasures  and  pains  in  the  balance,  hut  by 
being  prodigal  of  their  lives,  doing  and  enduring  all 
things  for  the  sake  of  their  fellow-men. 

The  opening  scene  in  the  third  book  is  as  lively  and 
dramatic  as  (what  was  no  doubt  the  writer's  model) 
the  introduction  of  a  Platonic  dialogue.  Cicero  has 
walked  across  from  his  Tusculan  villa  to  borrow^  some 
manuscripts  from  the  well  -  stocked  library  of  his 
young  friend  Lucullus  "^ — a  youth  whose  high  promise 
was  sadly  cut  short,  for  he  was  killed  at  Philippi, 
when  he  was  not  more  than  twenty-three.  There, 
"gorging  himself  with  hooks,"  Cicero  finds  Marcus 
Cato — a  Stoic  of  the  Stoics — who  expounds  in  a  high 
tone  the  principles  of  his  sect. 

Honour  he  declares  to  he  the  rule,  and  "  life  accord- 
ing to  nature  "  the  end  of  man's  existence.  And  wrong 
and  injustice  are  more  really  contrary  to  this  nature 
than  either  death,  or  poverty,  or  bodily  suffering,  or 
any  other  outward  evil."t  Stoics  and  Peripatetics 
are  agreed  at  least  on  one  point — that  bodily  plea- 
sures fade  into  nothing  before  the  si)leudours  of 
virtue,  and  that  to  compare  the  two  is  like  holding 
a  candle   against  the    sunlight,   or  setting  a  drop  of 

*  See  p.  43. 

t  So  Bisbo])  Butler,  in  the  i)reface  to  his  Sermons  upon  *  Hu- 
man Nature,'  says  they  were  "  intended  to  explain  what  is 
meant  by  the  nature  of  man,  when  it  is  said  that  virtue  con- 
sists in  following,  and  vice  in  deviating  from  it." 


'THE   TRUE  EXDS  OF  LIFE:  159 

brine  against  the  waves  of  the  ocean.  Yonr  Epi- 
curean would  have  each  man  live  in  selfish  isolation, 
engrossed  in  his  private  pleasures  and  pursuits.  We, 
on  the  other  hand,  maintain  that  "  Divine  Providence 
has  appointed  the  world  to  be  a  common  city  for  men 
and  gods,"  and  each  one  of  us  to  be  a  part  of  this  vast 
social  system.  And  thus  every  man  has  his  lot  and 
place  in  life,  and  should  take  for  his  guidance  those 
golden  rules  of  ancient  times — "  Obey  God ;  know 
thyself;  shun  excess."  Then,  rising  to  enthusiasm, 
the  philosopher  concludes  :  "  Who  cannot  but  admire 
the  incredible  beauty  of  such  a  system  of  morality  ? 
What  character  in  history  or  in  fiction  can  be  grander 
or  more  consistent  than  the  '  wise  man '  of  the  Stoics  1 
All  the  riches  and  glory  of  the  world  are  his,  for  he 
alone  can  make  a  right  use  of  all  things.  He  is  '  free,' 
though  he  be  bound  by  chains  ,  '  rich,'  though  in  the 
midst  of  poverty ;  '  beautiful,'  for  the  mind  is  fairer 
than  the  body ;  '  a  king,'  for,  unlike  the  tyrants  of 
the  world,  he  is  lord  of  himself ;  '  happy,'  for  he  has 
no  need  of  Solon's  warning  to  '  wait  till  the  end,'  since 
a  life  virtuously  spent  is  a  perpetual  happiness." 

In  the  fourth  book,  Cicero  himself  proceeds  to 
vindicate  the  wasdom  of  the  ancients — the  old  Aca- 
demic school  of  Socrates  and  his  pupils — against  what 
he  considers  the  novelties  of  Stoicism.  All  that  the 
Stoics  have  said  has  been  said  a  hundred  times  before 
by  Plato  and  Aristotle,  but  in  nobler  language.  They 
merely  "  pick  out  the  thorns"  and  "  lay  bare  the  bones^^ 
of  previous  systems,  using  newfangled  terms  and  misty 
arguments  with  a  "  vainglorious  parade."     Their  fine 


160  CICERO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

talk  about  citizens  of  the  world  and  the  ideal  wise 
man  is  rather  poetry  than  philosophy.  They  rightly 
connect  happiness  with  virtue,  and  virtue  with  wisdom; 
hut  so  did  Aristotle  some  centuries  before  them. 

But  their  great  fault  (says  Cicero)  is,  that  they 
ignore  the  practical  side  of  life.  So  broad  is  the  line 
which  they  draw  between  the  "  wise  "  and  "  foolish," 
that  they  would  dei.y  to  l*lato  himself  the  possession 
of  wisdom.  They  take  no  account  of  the  thousand 
circumstances  which  go  to  form  our  happiness.  To  a 
spiritual  being,  virtue  might  be  the  chief  good ;  but 
in  actual  life  our  physical  is  closely  bound  up  with 
our  mental  enjoyment,  and  pain  is  one  of  those  stern 
facts  before  which  all  theories  are  powerless.  Again, 
by  their  fondness  for  paradox,  they  reduce  all  offences 
to  the  same  dead  level.  It  is,  in  their  eyes,  as  impious 
to  beat  a  slave  as  to  beat  a  parent :  because,  as  they 
say,  "  nothing  can  be  more  virtuous  than  virtue, — 
nothing  more  vicious  than  vice."  And  lastly,  this 
stubbornness  of  opinion  affects  their  personal  char- 
acter. They  too  often  degenerate  into  austere  critics 
and  bitter  partisans,  and  go  far  to  banish  from  among 
us  love,  friendship,  gratitude,  and  all  the  fair  humani- 
ties of  life. 

The  fifth  book  carries  us  back  some  twenty  years, 
when  we  find  Cicero  once  more  at  Athens,  taking  his 
afternoon  walk  among  the  deserted  groves  of  the 
Academy.  With  him  are  his  brotlier  Quintus,  his 
cousin  Lucius,  and  his  friends  Piso  and  Atticus.  The 
scene,  with  its  historic  associations,  irresistibly  carries 
their  minds  back  to  those  illustrious  spirits  who  had 


h 


'THE   TRUE  ENDS  OF  LIFE:  161 

once  made  the  place  their  own.     Among  these  trees 
Plato  himself  had  walked  ;  under  the  shadow  of  that 
Porch  Zeno  had   lectured  to  his  disciples  ;  *  yonder 
Quintus  points  out  the  "  white  peak  of  Colonus,"  de- 
scribed by  Sophocles  in  "  those  sweetest  lines  ; "  while 
crlistenino-  on  the  horizon  were  the  waves  of  the  Phaleric 
harbour,  which  Demosthenes,  Cicero's  own  great  proto- 
type, had  outvoiced  with  the  thunder  of  his  declama- 
tion.    So  countless,  indeed,  are  the  memories  of  the 
past  called  up  by  the  genius  of  the  place,  that  (as  one 
of  the  friends  remarks)  "  wherever  we  plant  our  feet, 
we  tread  upon  some  history."      Then  Piso,  speaking 
at  Cicero's  request,  begs  his  friends  to  turn  from  the 
degenerate  thinkers  of  their  own  day  to  those  giants 
of  philosophy,  from  whose  writings  all  liberal  learning, 
all  history,  and  aU   elegance  of  language  may  be  de- 
rived.    More  than  all,  they  should  turn  to  the  leader 
of  the  Peripatetics,  Aristotle,  who  seemed  (like  Lord 
Bacon  after  him)    to    havcTtaken    all   knowledge   as 
his  portion.      From  these,  if  from  no  other  source,  we 
may  learn  the  secret  of  a  happy  life.    But  first  we  must 
settle  what  this  '  chief  good '  is— this  end  and  object  of 
our  efforts— and  not  be  carried  to  and  fro,  lil^e  ships 
without  a  steersman,  by  every  blast  of  doctrine. 

*  The  Stoics  took  their  name  from  the  '  stoa,'  or  portico  in." 
the  Academy,  wliere  they  sat  at  lecture,  as  the  Peripatetics  (the 
school  of  Aristotle)  from  the  little  knot  of  listeners  who  fol- 
lowed their  master  as  he  waJked.  Epiciirus's  school  were 
known  as  the  philosophers  of  'the  Garden,'  from  the  place 
where  he  taught.  The  '  Old  Academy  '  were  the  disciples  of 
Plato  ;  the  '  New  Academy '  (to  whose  tenets  Cicero  inclined) 
re\'ived  the  gi-eat  principle  of  Socrates— of  afiirming  nothing. 
A.  C.  vol.  ix.  L 


162  CICERO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

If  Epicurus  was  wrong  in  placing  Happiness 
"  In  corporal  pleasure  and  in  careless  ease," 

no  less  wrong  are  they  who  say  that  "  honour"  requires 
pleasure  to  be  added  to  it,  since  they  thus  make  honour 
itself  dishonourable.  And  again,  to  say  with  others 
that  happiness  is  tranquillity  of  mind,  is  simply  to  beg 
the  question. 

Putting,  then,  all  such  theories  aside,  we  bring  the 
argument  to  a  practical  issue.  Self-preservation  is 
tlie  first  great  principle  of  nature  ;  and  so  strong  is 
this  instinctive  love  of  life  both  among  men  and 
animals,  that  we  see  even  tbe  iron-hearted  Stoic  shrink 
from  the  actual  pangs  of  a  voluntary  death.  Then 
comes  the  question,  What  is  this  nature  that  is  so 
precious  to  each  of  us  ?  Clearly  it  is  compounded  of 
body  and  mind,  each  with  many  virtues  of  its  own  ; 
but  as  the  mind  should  rule  tlie  body,  so  reason,  as 
the  dominant  faculty,  should  rule  the  mind.  Virtue 
itself  is  only  "  the  perfection  of  this  reason,"  and,  call  it 
what  you  will,  genius  or  intellect  is  something  divine. 

Furthermore,  there  is  in  man  a  gradual  progress  of 
reason,  growing  with  his  growth  until  it  has  reached 
perfection.  Even  in  the  infant  there  are  "  as  it  were 
sparks_ofjartue  " — half-unconscious  principles  of  love 
and  gratitude  ;  and  these  germs  bear  fruit,  as  the  child 
develops  into  the  man.  AVe  have  also  an  instinct 
which  attracts  us  towards  tlie  pursuit  of  wisdom ; 
such  is  the  true  meaning  of  the  Sirens'  voices  in  the 
Odyssey,  says  the  philosopher,  quoting  from  the  poet 
of  all  tijiie  : — 


'THE  TRUE  ESDS  OF  LIFE:  163 

"  Turn  thy  swift  keel  and  listen  to  our  lay ; 
Since  never  pil-rim  to  these  re^dons  came, 
But  heard  our  sweet  voice  ere  he  sailed  away, 
And  in  his  joy  passed  on,  with  ampler  mind."  * 

It  is  wisdom,  not  pleasure,  which  they  offer.  Hence 
it  is  that  men  devote  their  days  and  nights  to  litera- 
ture, without  a  thought  of  any  gain  that  may  accrue 
from  it ;  and  philosophers  paint  the  serene  delights  of 
a  life  of  contemplation  in  the  islands  of  the  blest. 

Again,  our  minds  can  never  rest.  "Desire  for 
action  grows  with  us;"  and  in  action  of  some  sort, 
be  it  politics  or  science,  life  (if  it  is  to  be  life  at  all) 
must  be  passed  by  each  of  us.  Even  the  gambler 
must  ply  the  dice-box,  and  the  man  of  pleasure  seek 
excitement  in  society.  But  in  the  true  life  of  action, 
still  the  ruling  principle  should  be  honour. 

Such,  in  brief,  is  Piso's  (or  rather  Cicero's)  .vindica- 
tion of' the  old  masters  of  philosophy.  Before  they 
leave  the  place,  Cicero  Hres  a  parting  shot  at  the  Stoic 
paradox  that  the  '  wise  man  '  is  always  happy.  How, 
he  pertinently  asks,  can  one  in  sickness  and  poverty, 
blind,  or  childless,  in  exile  or  in  torture,  be  possibly 
caUed  happy,   except  by  a  monstrous    perversion  of 

language  %  t 

Here,  somewhat  abruptly,  the  dialogue  closes;  and 
Cicero  pronounces  no  judgment  of  his  own,  but  leaves 
the  great  question    almost  as  perplexed  as  when   he 

*  Odyss.  xii.  185  (Worsley). 

t  In  a  little  treatise  called  "  Paradoxes,"  Cicero  discusses  six 
of  these  scholastic  quibbles  of  the  Stoics. 


164  CICERO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

started  the  discussion.  But,  of  the  two  antagonistic 
theories,  he  leans  rather  to  the  Stoic  than  to  the  Epi- 
curean. Self-sacrihce  and  honour  seem,  to  his  view, 
to  present  a  higher  ideal  tlian  pleasure  or  expediency. 

II.    'academic  questions.* 

Fragments  of  two  editions  of  this  work  have  come 
down  to  us ;  for  almost  before  the  first  copy  had 
reached  the  hands  of  his  friend  Atticus,  to  whom  it  was 
s^.nt,  Cicero  had  rewritten  the  whole  on  an  enlarged 
scale.  The  first  book  (as  we  have  it  now)  is  dedicated 
to  Yarro,  a  noble  patron  of  art  and  literature.  In  his 
villa  at  CumiB  were  spacious  porticoes  and  gardens,  and 
a  library  with  galleries  and  cabinets  open  to  all  comers. 
Here,  on  a  terrace  looking  seawards,  Cicero,  Atticus, 
and  Varro  himself  pass  a  long  afternoon  in  discussing 
the  relative  merits  of  the  old  and  new  Academies  ;  and 
hence  we  get  the  title  of  the  work.  Varro  takes  the 
lion's  share  of  the  first  dialogue,  and  shows  how  from 
the  "  vast  and  varied  genius  of  Plato"  both  Academics 
and  Peripatetics  drew  all  their  philosophy,  whether  it 
related  to  morals,  to  nature,  or  to  logic.  Stoicism 
receives  a  passing  notice,  as  also  does  what  Varro  con- 
siders the  heresy  of  Theophrastus,  who  strips  virtue 
of  all  its  beauty,  by  denying  that  happiness  depends 
upon  it. 

The  second  book  is  dedicated  to  another  illustrious 
name,  the  elder  Lucullus,  not  long  deceased — half- 
statesman,  half-dilettante,  "  witli  almost  as  divine  a 
memory  for  facts,"  says  Cicero,  with  something  of  envy 


'ACADEMIC  QUEST  loss.  1G5 

"  as  Horteiisius  had  for  words."     This  time  it  is  at  his 
villa,  near  Tuseuhim,  amidst  scenery  perhaps  even  now 
tlie  loveliest  of  all  Italian  landscapes,  that  the  philo- 
sophic dialogue  takes  place.     Lucullus  condemns  the 
scepticism    of  the  Xew  Academy — those  reactionists 
against  the  dogmatism  of  past  times,  who  disbelieve 
their  very  eyesight.      If  (he  says)  we  reject  the  testi- 
mony of  the  senses,  there  is  neither  body,  nor  truth, 
nor  argument,  nor  anything  certain  left   us.      These 
perpetual  doubters  destroy  every  ground  of  our  belief. 
Cicero  ingeniously  defends  this    scepticism,   which 
was,    in    fact,    the    bent    of   his    own    mind.       After 
all, 'what  is  our  eyesight  worth?      The  ship  sailing 
across  the  bay  yonder  seems  to  move,  but  to  the  sailors 
it  is  the  shore  that  recedes  from  their  view.    Even  the 
sun,    "which   mathematicians   affirm  to    be    eighteen 
times  larger  than  the  earth,  looks  but  a  foot  in  diame- 
ter."    And  as  it  is  with  tliese  things,  so  it  is  with 
all  knowledge.     Eold  indeed  must  be  the  man  who 
can  define  the  point  at  which  belief  passes  into  cer- 
tainty.    Even  the  "  fine  frenzy  "  of  the  poet,  his  pic- 
tures of  gods  and  heroes,  are  as  lifelike  to  himself  ai.d 
to  his  hearers  as  though  he  actually  saw  them  ;— 

"  See  how  Apollo,  fair-haired  god. 
Draws  in  and  bends  his  golden  bow. 
While  on  the  left  fair  Dian  waves  her  torch." 

Xo— we  are  sure  of  nothing  ;  and  we  are  happy  if,  like 
Socrates,  we  only  know  this— that  we  know  nothing. 
Then,  as  if  in  irony,  or  partly  influenced  perhaps  by  the 
advocate's  love  of  arguing  the  case  both  ways,  Cicero 


1G6  CICERO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

demolislies  that  grand  argument  of  design  which  else- 
where he  so  carefully  constructs,*  and  reasons  in  tlie 
very  language  of  materialism  :  "  You  assert  that  all  the 
universe  could  not  have  been  so  ingeniously  made  with- 
out some  godlike  wisdom,  the  m^ajesty  of  which  you 
trace  down  even  to  the  perfection  of  bees  and  ants. 
Why,  then,  did  the  Deity,  when  he  made  everything 
for  the  sake  of  man,  make  such  a  variety  (for  instance) 
of  venomous  reptiles  %  Your  divine  soul  is  a  fiction  ; 
it  is  better  to  imagine  that  creation  is  the  result  of  the 
laws  of  nature,  and  so  release  the  Deity  from  a  great 
deal  of  hard  work,  and  me  from  fear ;  for  which  of  us, 
when  he  thinks  that  he  is  an  object  of  divine  care, 
can  help  feeling  an  awe  of  the  divine  j^ower  day  and 
nifrht  %  But  we  do  not  understand  even  our  own 
bodies ;  how,  then,  can  we  have  an  eyesight  so  pierc- 
ing as  to  penetrate  the  mysteries  of  heaven  and  earth  1" 
The  treatise,  however,  is  but  a  disappointing  frag- 
ment, and  the  argument  is  incomplete. 

Ill,     THE    'TUSCULAN    DTSPUTATTONS,' 

The  scene  of  this  dialogue  is  Cicero's  villa  at  Tuscu- 
lum.  There,  in  his  long  gallery,  he  walks  and  discus- 
ses with  his  friends  the  vexed  questions  of  morality. 
Was  death  an  evil  1  Was  the  soul  immortal  1  Hovv 
could  a  man  best  bear  pain  and  the  other  miseries  of 
life?     Was  virtue  any  guarantee  for  happiness? 

Then,  as  now,  death  was  the  great  problem  of  hu- 
manity--" to  die  and  go  we  know  nut  where."     The 

*  See  ]).  168. 


I 


'TUSCULAX  Jj/SPrTATIOXS.'  167 

old  belief  in  Elysium  and  Tartarus  liad  died  awct^'  ; 
as  Cicero  himself  boldly  puts  it  in  another  place,  such 
thin-^s  were  no  Ioniser  even  old  wives'  fables.  Either 
death  brought  an  absolute  unconsciousness,  or  the  soul 
soared  into  space.  "Lex  no  a  poena  mors'^ — "Death 
is  a  law,  not  a  penalty" — was  the  ancient  saying.  It 
was,  as  it  were,  the  close  of  a  l>au(juet  or  the  fall  of 
the  curtain.  "  AVhile  we  are,  de;,th  is  not ;  when 
death  has  come,  we  are  not." 

Cicero  brings  forward  the  testimony  of  past  ages  to 
prove  that  death  is  not  a  mere  annihilation.  Man 
cannot  perish  utterly.  Heroes  are  deified ;  and  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  return  to  us  in  visions  of  the  night. 
Somehow  or  other  (he  says)  there  clings  to  our  minds 
a  certain  presage  of  future  ages ;  and  so  we  plant,  that 
our  children  may  reap  ;  M'e  toil,  tliat  others  may  enter 
into  our  labours ;  and  it  is  this  life  after  death,  the 
desire  to  live  in  men's  mouths  for  ever,  which,  inspires 
the  patriot  and  the  martyr.  Fame  to  the  Roman, 
even  more  than  to  us,  was  "  the  last  infirmity  of  noble 
miuds."  It  was  so  in  a  special  degree  to  Cicero.  The 
instinctive  sense  of  immortal itv,  he  armies,  is  stroncr 
within  us ;  and  as,  in  the  M'ords  of  the  English  poet, 

"  Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting," 

so  also  in  death,  the  Roman  said,  though  in  other 
words — 

"Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 
Which  brought  us  hither." 

Believe  not  then,  says  Cicero,  tliose  old  wives'  tales, 
those  poetic  legends,  the  terrors  of  a  material  hell,  or 


IGS  CICERO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

tli5  joys  of  a  sensual  paradise.  Kather  hold  with 
Plato  that  the  soul  is  an  eternal  principle  of  life,  which 
lias  neither  heginning  nor  end  of  existence ;  for  if  it 
were  not  so,  heaven  and  earth  Avould  be  overset,  and 
all  nature  would  stand  at  gaze.  "  INlen  say  tliey  can- 
not conceive  or  comprehend  what  the  soul  can  he,  dis- 
tinct from  tlie  body.  As  if,  forsooth,  they  could 
comprehend  what  it  is,  when  it  is  m  the  body, — its 
conformation,  its  magnitude,  or  its  position  there.  .  . 
To  me,  when  I  consider  the  nature  of  the  soul,  there 
is  far  more  difficulty  iiud  obscurity  in  forming  a  con- 
ception of  what  the  soul  is  while  in  the  body, — in 
a  dwelling  where  it  seems  so  little  at  home, — than 
of  what  it  will  be  when  it  has  escaped  into  the 
free  atmus})here  of  heaven,  Avhich  seems  its  natural 
abode."  *  And  as  the  poet  seems  to  us  inspired,  as  the 
gifts  of  memory  and  eloquence  seem  divine,  so  is  the 
soul  itself,  in  its  simple  essence,  a  god  dwelling  in  the 
breast  of  each  of  us.  What  else  can  be  this  power 
which  enables  us  to  recollect  the  past,  to  foresee  the 
future,  to  understand  the  present  1 

There  follows  a  passage  on  the  argument  from  design 
which  anticipates  that  fine  saying  of  Voltaire — "  Si 
Dieu  n'existait  pas,  il  faudrait  I'inveuter ;  mais  toute 
la  nature  crie  qu'il  existe."  "  The  heavens,"  says  even 
the  heathen  philosopher,  "  declare  the  glory  of  God." 
Look  on  the  sun  and  the  stars  ;  look  on  the  alternation 
of  the  seasons,  and  the  changes  of  day  and  night ;  look 
aijain  at  the  earth  bringing  forth  her  fruits  ibr  the  use 
of  men ;   the  multitude  of  cattle  ;   and  man  himself, 

*  I.  c.  22. 


'TUSCULAX  DISPUTATIONS.'  169 

made  as  it  were  to  contemplate  and  adore  the  heavens 
and  the  gods.  Look  on  all  these  things,  and  douht 
not  that  there  is  some  Being,  though  you  see  him  not, 
who  has  created  and  jDresides  over  the  world. 

"  Imitate,  therefore,  the  end  of  Socrates  ;  who,  with 
the  fatal  cup  in  his  hands,  spoke  Avith  the  serenity  of 
one  not  forced  to  die,  but,  as  it  were,  ascending  into 
heaven  ;  for  he  thought  that  the  souls  of  men,  when 
they  left  the  body,  went  by  different  roads  ;  those  pol- 
luted by  vice  and  unclean  living  took  a  road  wide 
of  that  which  led  to  the  assembly  of  the  gods ;  while 
those  who  had  kept  themselves  pure,  and  on  earth  had 
taken  a  divine  life  as  their  model,  found  it  easy  to 
return  to  those  beings  from  whence  they  came."  Or 
learn  a  lesson  from  the  swans,  who,  with  a  prophetic 
instinct,  leave  this  world  with  joy  and  singing.  Yet 
do  not  anticipate  the  time  of  death,  "■  for  the  Deity 
forbids  us  to  depart  hence  without  his  summons  ;  but, 
on  just  cause  given  (as  to  Socrates  and  Cato),  gladly 
should  we  exchange  our  darkness  for  that  light,  aiid, 
like  men  not  breaking  prison  but  released  by  the  law, 
leave  our  chains  with  joy,  as  having  been  discharged 
by  God." 

The  feeling  of  these  ancients  with  regard  to  suicide, 
we  nmst  here  remember,  was  very  different  from  our 
own.  There  was  no  distinct  idea  of  the  sanctity  of  life  ; 
no  social  stigma  and  consequent  suffering  were  brought 
on  the  family  of  the  suicide.  Stoic  and  Epicurean  phil- 
osophers alike  upheld  it  as  a  lawful  remedy  against  the 
pangs  of  disease,  the  dotage  of  old  age,  or  the  caprices 
of  a  tyrant.     Every  man  might,  they  contended,  choose 


170  CICEPO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

his  own  route  on  the  last  great  journey,  and  sleep  well, 
when  he  grew  wearied  out  with  life's  fitful  fever.  The 
door  w^as  always  open  (said  Epictetus)  when  the  play 
palled  on  the  senses.  You  should  quit  the  stage  with 
dignity,  nor  drain  the  flask  to  the  dregs.  Some  phil- 
osophers, it  is  true,  protested  against  it  as  a  mere  de- 
vice of  cowardice  to  avoid  pain,  and  as  a  failure  in  our 
duties  as  good  citizens.  Cicero,  in  one  of  his  latest 
works,  again  quotes  with  approval  the  opinion  of  Py- 
thagoras, that  *'no  man  should  abandon  his  post  in 
life  without  the  orders  of  the  Great  Commander."  But 
at  Rome  suicide  had  been  glorified  bv  a  \o\\<x  roll  of 
illustrious  names,  and  the  j^rotest  was  made  in  vain. 

But  why,  continues  Cicero,  wdiy  add  to  the  miseries 
of  life  by  brooding  over  death?  Is  life  to  any  of  us 
such  unmixed  pleasure  even  while  it  lasts'?  Which  of 
us  can  tell  whether  he  be  taken  away  from  good  or 
from  evil?  As  our  birth  is  but  "a  sleep  and  a  forget- 
ting," so  our  death  may  be  but  a  second  sleep,  as  last- 
ing as  Endjnnion's.  Why  then  call  it  wretched,  even 
if  we  die  before  our  natural  time?  Nature  has  lent  us 
life,  without  fixing  the  day  of  payment ;  and  uncer- 
tainty is  one  of  the  conditions  of  its  tenure.  Compare 
our  longest  life  with  eternity,  and  it  is  as  short-lived 
as  that  of  those  ephemeral  insects  whose  life  is  meas- 
ured by  a  summer  day;  and  "  who,  when  the  sun  sets, 
have  reached  old  age." 

Let  us,  then,  base  our  happiness  on  strength  of 
mind,  on  a  contempt  of  earthly  pleasures,  and  on  the 
strict  observance  of  virtue.  Let  us  recall  the  last  noble 
words  of  Socrates  to  his  judges.      "The  death,"  said 


*TUSCULAX   DISPUTATIOXS:  17 1 

lie,  "to  which  you  condemn  me,  I  count  a  gain  rather 
than  a  loss.  Either  it  is  a  dreamless  sleep  that  knows 
no  waking,  or  it  carries  me  where  I  may  converse  with 
the  spirits  of  the  illustrious  dead.  /  go  to  death,  you 
to  life  ;  but  which  of  us  is  going  the  better  way,  God 
only  knows." 

Xo  man,  then,  dies  too  soon  who  has  run  a  course 
of  perfect  virtue  ;  for  glory  follows  like  a  shadow  in 
the  wake  of  such  a  life.  AVelcome  death,  therefore, 
as  a  blessed  deliverance  from  evil,  sent  by  the  special 
favour  of  the  gods,  who  thus  bring  us  safely  across  a 
sea  of  troubles  to  an  eternal  haven. 

The  second  topic  which  Cicero  and.  his  friends  dis- 
cuss is,  tlie  endurance  of  pain.  Is  it  an  unmixed  evil  ? 
Cau  anything  console  the  snfferer?  Cicero  at  once 
condemns  the  sophistry  of  Epicurus.  The  wise  man 
cannot  pretend  indilference  to  pain  ;  it  is  enough  that 
he  endure  it  mth  courage,  since,  beyond  all  question, 
it  is  sharp,  bitter,  and  hard  to  bear.  And  what  is 
this  courage?  Partly  excitement,  partly  the  impulse 
of  honour  or  of  shame,  i)artly  the  habituation  which 
steels  the  endurance  of  the  gladiator.  Keep,  therefore 
—  this  is  the  conclusion  —  stern  restraint  over  the 
feminine  elements  of  your  soul,  and  learn  not  only  to 
despise  the  attacks  of  pain,  but  also 

«  The  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune." 

From  physical,  the  discussion  naturally  passes  to 
mental,  suffering.  Eor  grief,  as  well  as  for  pain,  he 
prescribes  the  remedy  of  the  Stoics — ivquanimlUis — 
"  a  calm  serenity  of  mind."    The  wise  man,  ever  serene 


172  CICERO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

and  composed,  is  moved  neither  by  pain  or  sorrow,  by 
fear  or  desire.  He  is  equally  undisturbed  by  the  malice 
of  enemies  or  the  inconstancy  of  fortune.  But  what 
consolation  can  we  bring  to  ease  the  jjain  of  the 
Epicurean  ?  "  Pat  a  nosegay  to  his  nostrils — burn 
perfumes  before  him — crown  him  with  roses  and  wood- 
bine ! "  But  perfumes  and  garlands  can  do  little  in 
such  case  ;  pleasures  may  divert,  but  they  can  scarcely 
console. 

Again,  the  Cyrenaics  bring  at  the  best  but  Job's 
comfort.  No  man  will  bear  his  misfortunes  the  more 
lightly  by  bethinking  himself  that  they  are  unavoid- 
able— that  others  have  suffered  before  him — that  pain 
is  part  and  parcel  of  the  ills  which  flesh  is  heir  to. 
Why  grieve  at  all?  Why  feed  your  misfortune  by 
dwelling  on  if?  Plunge  rather  into  active  life  and 
forget  it,  remembering  that  excessive  lamentation  over 
the  trivial  accidents  of  humanity  is  alike  unmanly  and 
unnecessary.  And  as  it  is  with  grief,  so  it  is  with 
envy,  lust,  anger,  and  those  other  "perturbations  of 
the  mind "  which  the  Stoic  Zeno  rightly  declares  to 
be  "repugnant  to  reason  and  nature."  From  such 
disquietudes  it  is  the  wise  man  who  is  free. 

The  fifth  and  last  book  discusses  the  great  question. 
Is  virtue  of  itself  suihcient  to  make  life  happy  ?  The 
bold  conclusion  is,  that  it  is  sufficient.  Cicero  is  not 
content  with  the  timid  qualifications  adopted  by  the 
school  of  the  Peripatetics,  who  say  one  moment  tliat 
external  advantages  and  worldly  prosperity  are  nothing, 
and  then  again  admit  that,  though  man  may  be  happy 
without    them,   he  is  happier  with  them,—  which  is 


TREATISE  'OX  MORAL  DUTIES:  173 

making  the  real  happiness  imperfect  after  alL  INlen 
dilfer  in  their  views  of  life.  As  in  the  great  01,ympic 
games,  the  throng  are  attracted,  some  by  desire  of  gain, 
some  by  the  crown  of  wild  olive,  some  merely  by  the 
spectacle ;  so,  in  the  race  of  life,  we  are  all  slaves  to 
some  ruling  idea,  it  may  be  glory,  or  money,  or  Avis- 
dom.  But  they  alone  can  be  pronounced  happy  whose 
minds  are  like  some  tranquil  sea — "alarmed  by  no 
fears,  wasted  by  no  griefs,  inflamed  by  no  lusts,  ener- 
vated by  no  relaxing  pleasures,  —  and  such  serenity 
virtue  alone  can  }*'oduce." 

These  '  Disputations '  have  always  been  highly  ad- 
mired. But  their  popularity  was  greater  in  times 
when  Cicero's  Greek  originals  were  less  read  or  under- 
stood. Erasmus  carried  his  admiration  of  this  treatise 
to  enthusiasm.  "I  cannot  doubt,"  he  says,  "but  that 
the  mind  from  which  such  teaching  flowed  was  in- 
spired in  some  sort  by  divinity." 

IV.    THE   TREATISE    '  OX   MORAL   DUTIES.* 

The  treatise  'De  Ofliciis,'  known  as  Cicero's  '  Offices,' 
to  which  we  pass  next,  is  addressed  by  the  author  to 
his  son,  while  studying  at  Athens  under  Cratippus  ; 
possibly  in  imitation  of  Aristotle,  who  inscribed  his 
Ethics  to  his  son  Nicomachus.  It  is  a  treatise  on 
the  duties  of  a  gentleman  —  "the  noblest  present," 
says  a  modern  writer,  "  ever  made  by  parent  to  a 
child."  *  Written  in  a  far  higher  tone  than  Eord 
Chesterfield's  letters,  though  treating  of  the  same  sub- 

♦  Kelsall. 


174  CICERO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

ject,  it  proposes  and  answers  multifarious  questions 
which  must  occur  continually  to  the  modern  Clnistian 
as  well  as  to  the  ancient  philosopher.  "  What  makes 
an  action  right  or  wrong  1  What  is  a  duty  1  What  is 
expediency  1  How  shall  I  learn  to  choose  between 
my  principles  and  my  interests'?  And  lastly  (a  point 
of  casuistry  which  must  sometimes  perplex  the  strict- 
est conscience),  of  two  '  things  honest,' '■'  which  is  most 
so?" 

The  key-note  of  his  discourse  throughout  is  Honour  ; 
and  the  word  seems  to  carry  with  it  tliat  magic  force 
which  Burke  attributed  to  chivalry — ''the  unbought 
grace  of  life — the  nurse  of  heroic  sentiment  and  maidy 
enterprise."  NohJcfse  oblige, — and  there  is  no  state  of 
life,  says  Cicero,  without  its  obligations.  In  their  due 
discharge  consists  all  the  nobility,  and  in  their  neglect 
all  the  disgrace,  of  character.  There  should  be  no 
selfish  devotion  to  private  interests.  We  are  born  not 
for  ourselves  only,  Ijut  for  our  kindred  and  fatherland. 
We  owe  duties  not  only  to  those  who  have  benefited 
but  to  those  who  have  wronged  us.  We  should  render 
to  all  their  due  ;  and  justice  is  due  even  to  the  lowest 
of  mankind  :  wliat,  for  instance  (he  says  Avith  a  hard- 
ness Avhich  jars  upon  our  better  feelings),  can  be  lower 
than  a  slave  ?  Honour  is  that  *'  unbought  grace  "  Avhich 
adds  a  lustre  to  every   action.      In  society  it  produces 

*  The  English  "Honesty"  and  "  Honour"  alike  fail  to  con- 
vey the  full  force  of  the  Latin  honestus.  The  word  expresses 
a  progress  of  thought  trom  comeliness  and  grace  of  person  to 
a  noble  and  graceful  character — all  wliose  works  are  done  in 
honesty  and  honour. 


TREATISE   'ON  MORAL   DUTIES:  175 

courtesy  of  manners ;  in  business,  under  the  form  of 
truth,  it  establishes  public  credit.  Again,  as  equity,  it 
smooths  the  harsh  features  of  the  law.  In  war  it  pro- 
duces that  moderation  and  good  faith  between  contend- 
ing armies  which  are  the  surest  basis  of  a  lasting  peace. 
And  so  in  honour  are  centred  the  elements  of  all  the 
virtues — wisdom  and  justice,  fortitude  and  temperance; 
and  "if,"  he  says,  reproducing  the  noble  words  of 
Plato,  as  applied  by  him  to  Wisdom,  "this  *  Honour' 
could  but  be  seen  in  her  full  beauty  by  mortal  eyes, 
the  whole  world  would  fall  in  love  with  her." 

Such  is  the  general  spirit  of  this  treatise,  of  which 
only  the  briefest  sketch  can  be  given  in  these  pages. 

Cicero  bases  honour  on  our  inherent  excellence  of 
nature,  paying  the  same  noble  tribute  to  humanity  as 
Kant  some  centuries  after  :   "  On  earth  there  is  nothino- 

o 

great  but  man ;   in  man  there  is  nothing  great  but  * 
mind."     Truth  is  a  law  of  our  nature.     Man  is  only 
"  lower  than  the  angels ; "  and  to  him  belong  prero- 
gatives v/hich  mark  him  off  from  the  brute  creation — 
the  fticulties  of  reason  and  discernment,  the  sense  of 
beauty,  and  the  love  of  law  and  order.    And  from  this  • 
arises  that  fellow-feeling  which,  in  one  sense,  "makes  \ 
the  whole  world  kin  "—the  spirit  of  Terence's  famous 
line,  which  Cicero  notices  (applauded  on  its  recitation, 
as  Augustin  tells  us,  by  the  cheers  of  the  entire  audi- 
ence in  the  theatre) — 

"Homo  sum — humani  nihil  a  me  aliciiiiin  pnto  ;"  * 

*  "I  am  a  man— I  hold  that  nothing  which  concerns  man- 
kind can  be  matter  of  unconcern  to  me." 


4vl 


-r     f   *. 


176        "  - '   '**■  ilC^BO'S  PIllLOSOPH Y. 

for  (he  continues)  "  all  men  by  nature  love  one  another, 
and  desire  an  intercourse  of  words  and  action."  Hence 
spring  the  family  affections,  friendship,  and  social  ties; 
hence  also  that  general  love  of  combination,  which 
forms  a  striking  feature  of  the  present  age,  resulting 
iu  clubs,  trades -unions,  companies,  and  generally  in 
what  Mr  Carlyle  terms  "  swarmery." 

ISText  to  trutli,  justice  is  the  great  duty  of  mankind. 
Cicero  at  once  condemns  "  communism  "  in  matters  of 
property.  Ancient  immemorial  seizure,  conquest,  or 
compact,  may  give  a  title  ;  but  "  no  man  can  say  that 
he  has  anything  his  own  by  a  right  of  nature."  In- 
justice springs  from  avarice  or  ambition,  the  thirst  of 
riches  or  of  empire,  and  is  the  more  dangerous  as  it 
appears  in  the  more  exalted  spirits,  causing  a  dissolu- 
tion of  all  ties  and  obligations.  And  here  he  takes  oc- 
casion to  instance  "  that  late  most  shameless  attempt 
of  Ctesar's  to  make  himself  master  of  Eome." 

There  is,  besides,  an  injustice  of  omission.  You 
may  Avrong  your  neighbour  by  seeing  liiui  wronge<l 
without  interfering.  Cicero  takes  the  opportunity  of 
protesting  strongly  against  the  selhsh  policy  of  those 
lovers  of  ease  and  peace,  who,  "  from  a  desire  of 
furthering  their  own  interests,  or  else  from  a  churlish 
temper,  profess  that  they  mind  nol)ody's  business  but 
their  own,  in  order  that  they  may  seem  to  be  men  of 
strict  integrity  and  to  injure  none,"  and  thus  shrink 
from  taking  their  part  in  "the  fellowship  of  life." 
He  would  have  had  small  patience  witli  our  modern 
doctrine  of  non-intervention  and  neutrality  in  nations 
any  more  than  in  men.      Such  conduct  arises  (he  says) 


TREATISE   'ON  MOR: 

from  the  false  logic  with  which  men  cheat  their  con- 
science ;  arguing  reversely,  that  whatever  is  the  best 
policy  is — honesty. 

There  are  two  ways,  it  must  be  remembered,  in 
which  one  man  may  injure  another — force  and  fraud  ; 
but  as  the  lion  is  a  nobler  creature  than  the  fox,  so 
open  violence  seems  less  odious  than  secret  villany. 
!No  character  is  so  justly  hateful  as 

"  A  rogue  in  grain, 
Veneered  with  sanctimonious  theory." 

I^ations  have  their  obligations  as  well  as  individuals, 
and  war  has  its  laws  as  well  as  peace.  The  struggle 
should  be  carried  on  in  a  generous  temper,  and  not  in 
the  spirit  of  extermination,  when  "  it  has  sometimes 
seemed  a  questicjn  between  two  hostile  nations,  not 
which  sliould  remain  a  conqueror,  but  which  should, 
remain  a  nation  at  all." 

No  mean  part  of  justice  consists  in  liberality,  and 
this,  too,  has  its  duties.  It  is  an  important  question, 
how,  and  when,  and  to  whom,  we  should  give  1  It  is 
possible  to  be  generous  at  another  person's  expense  : 
it  is  possible  to  injure  the  recipient  by  mistimed 
liberality ;  or  to  ruin  one's  fortune  by  open  house  and 
prodigal  hospitality.  A  great  man's  bounty  (as  he 
says  in  another  place)  should  be  a  common  sanctuary 
for  the  needy.  "  To  ransom  captives  and  enrich  the 
meaner  folk  is  a  nobler  form  of  generosity  than  pro- 
viding wild  beasts  or  shows  of  gladiators  to  amuse  the 
mob."     Charity  should  begin  at  home  ;   for  relations 

A.  c.  vol.  ix.  M 


178  CICERO'S  PIIILO^OPLY. 

and  friends  hold  the  first  place  in  our  affections  ;  hut 
the  circle  of  our  good  deeds  is  not  to  he  narrowed 
by  the  ties  of  blood,  or  sect,  or  party,  and  "  our 
country  comprehends  the  endearments  of  all."  We 
should  act  in  the  spirit  of  the  ancient  law — "  Thou 
shalt  keep  no  man  from  the  running  stream,  or  from 
lighting  his  torch  at  thy  hearth."  Our  liberality 
shouhl  be  really  liberal, — like  that  charity  which 
Jeremy  Taylor  describes  as  "friendship  to  all  the 
world." 

Another  component  principle  of  this  honour  is  cour- 
age, or  "  greatness  of  soul,"  which  (continues  Cicero) 
has  been  well  defined  by  the  Stoics  as  "  a  virtue  con- 
tending for  justice  and  honesty;"  and  its  noblest  form 
is  a  generous  contempt  for  ordinary  objects  of  ambi- 
tion, not  "  from  a  vain  or  fantastic  humour,  but  from 
solid  principles  of  reason."  The  lowest  and  commoner 
form  of  courage  is  the  mere  animal  virtue  of  the 
fighting-cock. 

But  a  character  should  not  only  be  excellent,- — it 
should  be  graceful.  In  gesture  and  de|)oitnient  men 
shwdd  strive  to  acquire  that  dignified  grace  of  manners 
"  which  adds  as  it  were  a  lustre  to  our  lives."  They 
should  avoid  altectation  ai]d  eccentricity  ;  "  not  to  care 
a  farthing  what  people  think  of  us  is  a  sign  not  so 
much  of  pride  as  of  immodesty."  The  want  of  tact — 
the  saying  and  doing  things  at  the  wrong  time  and 
place — produces  the  same  discord  in  society  as  a  false 
note  in  music ;  and  harmony  of  character  is  of  more 
consequence  than  harmony  of  sounds.  There  is  a 
grace   in   words   as   well  as  in   conduct :    we  should 


TREATISE  'OX  MORAL  DUTIES:  179 

avoid  unseasonable  jests,  "  and  not  lard  our  talk  with 
Greek  quotations."  '* 

In  the  path  of  life,  each  should  follow  the  bent  of 
his  own  genius,  so  far  as  it  is  innocent — 

"  Honour  and  shame  from  no  condition  rise  ; 
Act  well  your  part — there  all  the  honour  lies." 

Nothing  is  so  difficult  (says  Cicero)  as  the  choice  of 
a  profession,  inasmuch  as  "  the  choice  has  commonly 
to  be  made  when  the  judgment  is  weakest."     Some 
tread  in  their  father's  steps,  others  beat  out   a  fresh 
line  of  their  own  ;  and  (he  adds,  perhaps  not  without 
a  personal  reference)  this  is  generally  the  case  with 
those  born    of  mean  parents,  who  propose   to  carve 
their  own  way  in  the   world.      But  the  iittrveim  of 
Arpinum  —  the   '  new  man,'  as    aristocratic  jealousy 
always  loved  to  call  him — is  by  no  means  insensible 
to  the  true  honours  of  ancestry.      "  The  noblest  inher- 
itance," he  says,  "  that  can  ever  be  left  by  a  father  to 
his  son,  far  excelling  that  of  lands  and  houses,  is  the 
fame  of  his  virtues  and  glorious  actions  ;  "  and  saddest 
of  all  sights  is  that  of  a  noble  house  dragged  through 
the  mire  by  some  degenerate  descendant,  so  as  to  be  a 
by-word  among  the  populace, — "which  may"  (he  con- 
cludes) "  be  justly  said  of  but  too  many  in  our  times." 
The  Eoman's  view  of  the   comparative  dignity  of 
professions  and  occupations  is  interesting,  because  his 
prejudices  (if  they  be  prejudices)  have  so  long  main- 

*  This  last  precept  Cicero  must  have  considered  did  not 
apply  to  letter-writing,  otherwise  he  was  a  notorious  oliender 
aiiaiust  his  own  rule. 


180  CICERO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

tained  their  ground  amongst  us  moderns.  Tax-gatlier- 
ers  and  usurers  are  as  unpopular  now  as  ever — the 
latter  very  deservedly  so.  Retail  trade  is  despicable, 
we  are  told,  and  "  all  mechanics  are  by  their  profes- 
sion mean."  Especially  such  trades  as  minister  to 
mere  appetite  or  luxury — butchers,  fishmongers,  and 
cooks ;  perfumers,  dancers,  and  suchlike.  But  medi- 
cine, architecture,  education,  farming,* and  even  whole- 
sale business,  especially  importation  and  exportation, 
are  the  professions  of  a  gentleman.  "  Eut  if  the  mer- 
chant, satisfied  with  his  profits,  shall  leave  the  seas  and 
-  from  the  harbour  step  into  a  landed  estate,  such  a  man 
seems  justly  deserving  of  praise."  We  seem  to  be 
reading  the  verdict  of  modern  English  society  delivered 
by  anticipation  two  thousand  years  ago. 

The  section  ends  with  earnest  advice  to  all,  that  they 
should  put  their  principles  into  practice.  "  The  deepest 
knowledge  of  nature  is  but  a  poor  and  imperfect  busi- 
ness, unless  it  proceeds  into  action.  As  justice  con- 
sists in  no  abstract  theory,  but  in  upholding  society 
among  men, — as  "  greatness  of  soul  itself,  if  it  be  iso- 
lated from  the  duties  of  social  life,  is  but  a  kind  of  un- 
couth churlishness," — so  it  is  each  citizen's  duty  to  leave 
his  philosophic  seclusion  of  a  cloister,  and  take  his  place 
in  public  life,  if  the  times  demand  it,  "  though  he  be 
able  to  number  the  stars  and  measure  out  the  world." 

The  same  practical  vein  is  continued  in  the  next 
book.  What,  after  all,  are  a  man's  real  interests  %  wliat 
line  of  conduct  will  best  advance  tlie  main  end  of  his 
life  %  Generally,  men  make  the  fatal  mistake  of  assum- 
ing that  honour  must  always  clash  with  their  interests  ; 


TREATISE  'OX  MORAL  DUTIES.'  18! 

while  in  reality,  says  Cicero,  "  they  would  obtain  their 
ends  best,  not  by  knavery  and  underhand  dealing,  but 
by  justice  and  integrity."  The  right  is  identical  with 
the  expedient.  "  The  way  to  secure  the  favour  of  the 
gods  is  by  upright  dealing ;  and  next  to  the  gods,  no- 
thing contributes  so  much  to  men's  happiness  as  men 
themselves."  It  is  labour  and  co-operation  which  have 
given  us  all  the  goods  which  we  possess. 

Since,  then,  man  is  the  best  friend  to  man,  and 
also  his  most  formidable  enemy,  an  important  question 
to  be  discussed  is  the  secretof  influence  and  popularity — 
"  the  art  of  winning  men's  affections."     For  to  govern 
by  bribes  or  by  force  is  not  really  to  govern  at  all ;  and 
no  obedience  based  on  fear  can  be  lasting — "  no  force 
of  power  can  bear  up  long  against  a  current  of  public 
hate."     Adventurers  who  ride  rough-shod  over  law  (he 
is  thinking  again  of  Cifisar)  have  but  a  short-hved  reign  ; 
and  "  liberty,  when  she  has  been  chained  up  a  while, 
bites  harder  when  let  loose  than  if  she  had  never  been 
chained  at  all."  *    Most  happy  was  that  just  and  moder- 
ate government  of  Eome  in  earlier  times,  when  she  was 
"  the  port  anil  refuge  for  princes  and  nations  in  their 
hour  of  need."     Three  requisites  go  to  form  that  popu- 
lar character  which  has  a  just  influence  over  others  ; 
we  must  win  men's  love,  we  must  deserve  theii'  cunti- 

*  It  is  curious  to  note  how,  throughout  the  whole  of  this 
argument,  Cicero,  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously,  works 
upon  the  principle  that  the  highest  life  is  the  political  life,  and 
that  the  highest  object  a  man  can  set  before  him  is  the  obtain- 
inc,  by  legitimate  means,  influence  and  authority  amongst  his 
fellow-citizens. 


182  CICERO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

dence,  and  we  must  inspire  them  with  an  admiration 
for  our  abilities.  The  shortest  and  most  direct  road  to 
real  influence  is  that  which  Socrates  recommends — "  for 
a  man  to  be  that  which  he  wishes  men  to  take  him 
for."* 

Then  follow  some  maxims  which  show  how  thor- 
oughly conservative  was  the  policy  of  our  philosopher. 
The  security  of  property  he  holds  to  be  the  security 
of  the  state.  There  must  be  no  playing  with  vested 
rights,  no  unequal  taxation,  no  attempt  to  bring  all 
things  to  a  level,  no  cancelling  of  debts  and  redistribu- 
tion of  land  (he  is  thinking  of  the  baits  held  out  by 
Catiline),  none  of  those  traditional  devices  for  winning 
favour  Avith  the  jDeople,  which  tend  to  destroy  that 
social  concord  and  unity  which  make  a  common- 
wealth. "  What  reason  is  there,"  he  asks,  "  why, 
when  I  have  bought,  built,  repaired,  and  laid  out  much 
money,  another  shall  come  and  enjoy  the  fruits  of  it  % " 

And  as  a  man  should  be  careful  of  the  interests  of  the 
social  body,  so  he  should  be  of  his  own.  But  Cicero 
feels  that  in  descending  to  such  questions  he  is 
somewhat  losing  sight  of  his  dignity  as  a  moralist. 
"  You  will  find  all  this  thoroughly  discussed,"  he  says 
to  his  son,  "in  Xenojjlion's  Q^conomics  —  a  book 
which,  when  I  was  just  your  age,  I  translated  from 
the  Greek  into  Latin."  [One  wonders  whether  young 
Marcus  took  the  hint.]  "  And  if  you  want  instruction 
in  money  matters,  there  are  gentlemen  sitting  on  the 

*  "  Not  being  less  but  more  than  all 
The  gentleness  he  seemed  to  be." 

— Tennyson  :  '  In  Memoriam.' 


TREATISE   'Oy  MORAL   DUTIES.'  183 

Exchange  who  will  teach  you  much  better  than  the 
philosophers." 

The  last  book  opens  with  a  saying  of  the  elder 
Cato's,  which  Cicero  much  admires,  though  he  says 
modestly  that  he  was  never  able  in  his  own  case  quite 
to  realise  it — "  I  am  never  less  idle  than  w^hen  I  am 
idle,  and  never  less  alone  than  when  alone."  lietire- 
ment  and  solitude  are  excellent  things,  Cicero  always  . 
declares  ;  generally  contriving  at  the  same  time  to 
make  it  plain,  as  he  does  here,  that  his  own  heart  is  in 
the  world  of  public  life.  But  at  least  it  gives  him  time 
for  writing.  He  "  has  written  more  in  this  short  time, 
since  the  fall  of  the  Commonwealth,  than  in  all  the 
years  during  which  it  stood." 

He  here  resolves  the  question,  If  honour  and  interest 
seem  to  clash,  which  is  to  give  way?  Or  rather,  it  has 
been  resolved  abeady  ;  if  the  right  be  always  the  ex- 
pedient, the  opposition  is  seeming,  not  real.  He  puts 
a  great  many  questions  of  casuistry,  but  it  all  amounts 
to^'this  :  the  good  man  keeps  his  oath,  ''  though  it  were  ^ 
to  his  own  hindrance."  But  it  is  never  to  his  hin- 
drance ;  for  a  violation  of  his  conscience  would  be  the 
greatest  hindrance  of  all. 

In  this  treatise,  more  than  in  any  of  his  other  phi- 
losophical works,  Cicero  inclines  to  the  teaching  of  the 
Stoics.  In  the  others,  he  is  rather  the  seeker  after 
truth  than  the  maintainer  of  a  system.  His  is  the 
critical  eclecticism  of  the  '  Xew  Academy  '—the  spirit 
so  prevalent  in  our  own  day,  which  fights  against  the 
shackles  of  dogmatism.  And  with  all  his  respect  for 
the  nobler  side  of  Stoicism,  he  is  fully  alive  to  its  de- 


184  CICERO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 

fects ;  though  it  was  not  given  to  him  to  see,  as  Mil- 
ton saw  after  him,  the  point  wherein  that  great  system 
really  failed — tlie  "  philosophic  pride  "  which  was  the 
besetting  sin  of  all  disciples  in  the  school,  from  Cato  to 
Seneca : — 

"  Ignorant  of  themselves,  of  God  much  more, 
****** 

Much  of  the  j(^ul  they  talk,  but  all  anry  ; 
And  in  themselves  seek  virtue,  and  to  themselves 
All  glory  arrogate, — to  God  give  none  ; 
Rather  accuse  Him  under  usual  names. 
Fortune,  or  Fate,  as  one  regardless  quite 
Of  mortal  things."  * 

Yet,  in  spite  of  this,  such  men  were  as  the  salt  of  the 
earth  in  a  corrupt  age ;  and  as  we  find,  throughout  the 
more  modern  pages  of  history,  great  preachers  de- 
nouncing wickedness  in  high  places, —  Bourdaloue  and 
Massillon  pouring  their  eloquence  into  the  heedless 
ears  of  Louis  XIV.  and  his  courtiers — Sherlock  and 
Tillotson  declaiming  from  the  pulpit  in  such  stirring 
accents  that  "  even  the  indolent  Charles  roused  him- 
self to  listen,  and  the  fastidious  Buckingham  forgot  to 
/  sneer  "t  — so,  too,  do  we  find  these  ''moidvs  of  heathen- 
Idom,"  as  the  Stoics  have  been  not  uufairly  called, 
protesting  in  their  day  agaiust  that  selfish  profligacy 
which  was  fast  sapping  all  morality  in  the  Roman 
empire.  No  doubt  (as  Mr  Lecky  takes  care  to  tell  us), 
their  high  principles  were  not  always  consistent  with 
their  practice  (alas  !  whose  are  ?) ;  Cato  may  have  ill- 
used  his  slaves,  Sallust  may  have  been  rapacious,  and 

*  Piiradiae  Re;^;u'n('<l.  \  Macanhiv. 


THE  STOICS.  185 

Seneca  wanting  in  personal  courage.  "  Yet  it  was  surely 
something  to  have  set  np  a  noble  ideal,  though  they 
might  not  attain  to  it  themselves,  and  in  "  that  liideous 
carnival  of  vice"  to  have  kept  themstlves,  so  far  as 
they  might,  unspotted  from  the  world.     Certain  it  is 
that  no  other  ancient  sect  ever  came  so  near  the  light 
of  revelation.     Passages  from  Seneca,  from  Epictetus, 
from  Marcus  Aurelius,  sound  even  now  like  fragments 
of  the  inspired  writings.     The  Unknown  God,  whom 
they  iguorantly  worshipped  as  the  Soul  or  Eeason  of 
the  World,    is— in  spite   of  Milton's   strictures — the 
beginning  and  the  end  of  their  pliilosophy.     Let  us 
listen  for  a  moment  to  their  language.      "  Prayer  should 
be  only  for  the  good."     "  Men  should  act  according  to 
the   spirit,   and  not  according  to   the  letter  of  their 
faith."      "AVouldest  thou   propitiate  the  gods?      Ee 
good :    he  has  worsliipped  tliem  sufficiently  who  has 
imitated  tliem."     It  was  from  a  Stoic  poet,  Aratus, 
that  St  Paul  quoted  the  great  truth  which  was  the 
rational  argument  against  idolatry — "  For  we  are  also 
His  offspring,  and  "  (so  the  original  passage  concludes) 
"we  alone    possess   a  voice,   which  is  the  image   of 
reason."     It  is  in  another  poet  of  the  same  school  that 
we  find  what  are  perhaps  the  noblest  lines  in  all  Latin 
poetry.     Persius  concludes  his  Satire  on  the  common 
hypocrisy  of  those  prayers  and  offerings  to  the  gods 
which  were  but  a  service  of  the  lips  and  hands,  in 
words  of  which  an  Enghsh  rendering  may  give  the 
sense  but  not  the  beauty: — "  ^ay,  then,  let  us  offer 
to  the  gods  that  which  the  debauched  sons  oi  great 
Messala    can    never    bring    on    their  broad    chargers. 


186 


CICERO'S  PHILOSOPHY. 


—a  soul  wherein  the  laws  of  God  and  man  are 
blended, — a  heart  pure  to  its  inmost  depths, — a 
breast  ingrained  with  a  noble  sense  of  honour. 
Let  me  but  bring  these  with  nie  to  the  altar,  and  I 
care  not  though  my  offering  be  a  handful  of  corn." 
With  these  grand  words,  fit  precursors  of  a  purer 
creed  to  come,  we  may  take  our  leave  of  the  Stoics, 
remarking  how  thoroughly,  even  in  their  majestic 
egotism,  they  represented  the  moral  force  of  the  nation 
among  whom  they  flourished ;  a  nation,  says  a  modern 
preacher,  "  whose  legendary  and  historic  heroes  could 
thrust  their  hand  into  the  flame,  and  see  it  consumed 
without  a  nerve  shrinking ;  or  come  from  captivity  on 
parole,  advise  their  countrymen  against  a  peace,  and 
then  go  back  to  torture  and  certain  death  ;  or  devote 
themselves  by  solemn  self-sacrifice  like  the  Decii. 
The  world  must  bow  before  such  men  ;  for,  uncon- 
sciously, here  was  a  form  of  the  spirit  of  the  Cross — 
self-surrender,  unconquerable  fidelity  to  duty,  sacrifice 
for  others."  * 

*  F.  W.  Robertson,  Sermons,  i.  218. 


Portions  of  three  treatises  by  Cicero  upon  Political 
Philosophy  have  come  down  to  us  : — 1.  'De  Republica';  a 
dialogue  on  Government,  founded  chiefly  on  the  *  Re- 
public '  of  Plato  :  2.  '  De  Legibus '  ;  a  discussion  on  Law 
in  the  abstract,  and  on  national  systems  of  legislation  : 
3.  '  De  Jure  Civili';  of  which  last  only  a  few  fragments 
exist.     His  historical  works  have  all  perished. 


CHAPTER     XII. 

CICERO's    RELIGION. 

It  is  difficult  to  separate  Cicero's  religion  from  Ms 
philosophy.  In  both  he  was  a  sceptic,^  hut  in  the 
better  sense  of  the  word.  His  search  after  truth  was 
in  no  sneering  or  incredulous  spirit,  but  in  that  of  a 
reverent  inquirer.  We  must  remember,  in  justice  to 
him,  that  an  earnest -minded  man  in  his  day  could 
hardly  take  higher  ground  than  that  of  the  sceptic. 
The  old  polytheism  was  dying  out  in  everything  but 
in  name,  and  there  was  notliing  to  take  its  place. 

His  religious  belief,  so  far  as  we  can  gather  it, 
was  rather  negative  than  positive.  In  the  speculative 
treatise  which  he  has  left  us,  '  On  the  Mature  of  the 
Gods/  he  examines  all  the  current  creeds  of  the  day, 
but  leaves  his  own  quite  undefined. 

The  treatise  takes  the  form,  like  the  rest,  of  an 
imaginary  conversation.  This  is  supposed  to  have  taken 
place  at  the  house  of  Aurehus  Cotta,  then  Pontifex 
Maximus — an  office  which  answered  nearly  to  that  of 
Minister  of  religion.  The  other  speakers  are  Ealbus, 
Velleius,   and    Cicero   himself,  —  who  acts,   however, 


188  CICERO'S  RELIGION. 

rather  in  tlie  character  of  moderator  than  of  disputant. 
The  debate  is  still,  as  in  the  more  strictly  philosophical 
dialogues,  between  the  different  schools.    Velleius  first 
sets  forth  the  doctrine  of  his  master  Epicurus ;  speaking 
about  the  gods,  says  one  of  his  opponents,  with  as  much 
apparent  intimate  knowledge  "  as  if  he  had  just  come 
straight  down  from  heaven."     All  the  speculations  of 
previous  philosophers — which  he  reviews  one  after  the 
other — are,  he  assures  the  company,  palpable  errors. 
The  popular  mythology  is  a  mere  collection  of  fables. 
Plato  and  the  Stoics,  with  their  Soul  of  the  woild  and- 
their  pervading  Providence,  are  entirely  wroug ;   the 
\  disciples  of  Epicurus  alone  are  right.     There  are  gods  ; 
that  much,  the  universal  belief  of  mankind  in  all  ages 
sufficiently  establishes.     But  that  they  should  be  the 
laborious  beings  which  the  common  systems  of  theology 
would  make  them, —  that  they  should  employ  them- 
selves  in   the   manufacture   of  worlds, — is  manifestly 
absurd.      Some  of  this  argument  is  ingenious.     ""Wliat 
should  induce  the  Deity  to  perform  the  functions  of 
an  ^dile,  to  light  up  and  decorate  the  world  1     If  it 
was  to  supply  better  accommodation  for  himself,  then 
he  must  have  dwelt  of  choice,  up  to  that  time,  in  the 
darkness  of  a  dungeon.     If  such  improvements  gave 
him  pleasure,  why  should  he  have  chosen  to  be  without 
them  so  long?" 

No — the  gods  are  immortal  and  happy  beings  ;  and 
these  very  attributes  imply  that  they  should  be  wholly 
free  from  the  cares  of  business— exempt  ffom  labour, 
as  from  pain  and  death.  They  are  in  human  form,  but 
of  an  ethereal  and  subtile  essence,  incapable  of  our 


*0S    TJIE   XATCRE   OF   THE   GODS.  189 

passions  or  desires.    Happy  in  their  own  perfect  wisdom 
and  virtue,  they 

"  Sit  beside  their  nectar,  careless  of  mankind." 

Cotta — speaking  in  behalf  of  the  New  Academy — 
controverts  these  views.  Be  these  your  gods,  Epicurus? 
as  well  say  there  are  no  gods  at  all.  What  reverence, 
what  love,  or  what  fear  can  men  have  of  beings  who 
neither  wish  them,  nor  can  work  them,  good  or  ill? 
Is  idleness  the  divinest  life  ?  "  Why,  'tis  the  very 
heaven  of  schoolboys ;  yet  the  schoolboys,  on  their 
holiday,  employ  themselves  in  games."  Nay,  he  con- 
cludes, what  the  Stoic  Posidonius  said  of  your  master 
Epicurus  is  true — "  He  believed  there  Avere  no  gods, 
and  what  he  said  about  their  nature  he  said  only  to 
avoid  popular  odium."  He  could  not  believe  that  the 
Deity  has  the  outward  shape  of  a  man,  without  any 
solid  essence ;  that  he  has  all  the  members  of  a  man, 
without  the  power  to  use  them  ;  that  he  is  a  shadowy 
transparent  being,  who  shows  no  favour  and  confers  no 
benefits  on  any,  cares  for  nothing  and  does  nothing; 
this  is  to  allow  his  existence  of  the  gods  in  word,  but 
to  deny  it  in  fact. 

Velleius  compliments  his  opponent  on  his  clever 
argument,  but  desires  that  Balbus  would  state  his 
views  upon  the  question.  The  Stoic  consents  ;  and, 
at  some  length,  proceeds  to  prove  (what  neither  dis- 
putant has  at  all  denied)  the  existence  of  Divine 
beings  of  some  kind.  Universal  belief,  well-authen- 
ticated instances  of  their  appearance  to  men,  and  of 
the  fulfilment   of  prophecies  and  omens,  are  all  evi- 


190  CICERO'S  RELIGION. 

dences  of  tlieir  existence.  He  dwells  much,  too,  on 
the  argument  from  design,  of  which  so  much  use  has 
been  made  by  modern  theoh)gians.  He  furnishes 
Paley  with  the  idea  for  his  well-known  illustration  of 
the  man  who  finds  a  watch  ;  "  when  we  see  a  dial  or 
a  water-clock,  we  believe  that  the  hour  is  shown 
thereon  by  art,  and  not  by  chance."  *  He  gives  also 
an  illustration  from  the  poet  Attius,  wdiich  from  a 
poetical  imagination  has  since  become  an  historical 
incident ;  the  shepherds  who  see  the  ship  Argo  ap- 
])roaching  take  the  new  monster  for  a  thing  of  life,  as 
the  Mexicans  regarded  the  ships  of  Cortes.  Much 
more,  he  argues,  does  the  harmonious  order  of  the 
world  bespeak  an  intelligence  within.  But  his  con- 
clusion is  that  the  Universe  itself  is  the  Deity ;  or  that 
the  Deity  is  the  animating  Spirit  of  the  Universe  ; 
and  that  the  popular  mythology,  which  gives  one  god  to 
the  Earth,  one  to  the  Sea,  one  to  Fire,  and  so  on,  is  in 
fact  a  distorted  version  of  this  truth.  The  very  form 
of  the  universe — the  sphere — is  the  most  perfect  of  all 
forms,  and  therefore  suited  to  embody  the  Divine. 

Tlien  Cotta — wlio  though,  as  Pontifex,  he  is  a 
national  priest  by  vocation,  is  of  tbat  sect  in  philo- 
sophy which  makes  doubt  its  creed — resumes  his  ob- 
jections. He  is  no  better  satisfied  with  the  tenets  of 
the  Stoics  than  with  those  of  the  Epicureans.  He 
believes  that  there  are  gods ,  but,  coming  to  the  dis- 
cu>;sion  as  a  dispassionate  and  philosophical  observer, 
he  finds  such  proofs  as  are  offered  of  their  existence 
insufficient.  But  this  third  book  is  fragmentary,  and 
*  De  Nat.  Deor.  ii.  34.      Paley 's  Kat.  Theol.  ch.  i. 


'Oy  THE  NATURE   OF  THE   GODS.'  191 

the  continuity  of  Cotta's  argument  is  broken  by  con- 
siderable gaps   in  all  the  manuscripts.      There  is  a 
curious  tradition,   that  these  portions  Avere  carefully 
torn  out  by  the  early  Christians,  because  they  might 
prove  too  formidable   weapons  in   the  hands  of  un- 
believers.    Cotta  professes  throughout  only   to  raise 
his  objections  in  the  hope  that  they  may  be  refuted  ; 
but  his  whole  reasoning  is  destructive  of  any  belief 
in  an  overruling  Providence.       He  confesses  himself 
puzzled  by  that  insoluble  mystery — the  existence  of 
Evil  in  a  world  created  and   ruled   by  a  beneficent 
Power.     The  gods  have  given  man  reason,  it  is  said ; 
but  man  abuses  the  gift  to  evil  ends.      "  This  is  the 
fault,"  you  say,  "  of  men,  not  of  the  gods.     As  though 
the  physician  should  complain  of  the  virulence  of  the 
disease,  or  the  pilot  of  the  fury  of  the  tempest !    Though 
these  are  but  mortal  men,  even  in  them  it  would  seem 
ridiculous.     Who  would   have  asked  your  help,  we 
should  answer,  if  these  difficulties  had  not  arisen  ?   May 
we  not  argue  still  more  strongly  in  the  case  of  the 
gods  ?     The  fault,  you  say,  lies  in  the  vices  of  men. 
But   you   should    have   given    men    such    a    rational 
faculty    as    would    exclude   the    possibility    of    such 
crimes."    He  sees,  as  David  did,  "  the  ungodly  in  pros- 
perity."    The  laws  of  Heaven  are  mocked,  crimes  aie 
committed,  and  "  the  thunders  of  Olympian  Jove  are 
silent."     He  quotes,   as  it  would  always  be  easy  to 
quote,   examples  of  this   from  all  history  :  the  most 
telling  and  original,  perhaps,  is  the  retort  of  Diagoras, 
who  was  called  the  Atheist,  when  they  showed  him 
in  the  temple  at  Samothrace  the  votive  tablets  (as  they 


192  CICERO'S  RELIGION. 

may  be  seen  in  some  foreign  churches  now)  offered  by 
those  shipwrecked  seamen  who  had  been  saved  from 
drowning.  "  Lo,  thou  that  deniest  a  Providence,  be- 
hold here  how  many  liave  been  saved  by  prayer  to 
the  gods  ! "  "  Yea,"  was  his  reply  ;  "  but  where  are 
those  commemorated  who  were  drowned  1 " 

The  Dialogue  ends  with  no  resolution  of  the  diffi- 
culties, and  no  conclusion  as  to  the  points  in  question. 
Cicero,  who  is  the  narrator  of  the  imaginary  confer- 
Aence,  gives  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  arguments  of  the 
^Stoic  seemed  to  him  to  have  "  the  greater  probability." 
It  was  the  great  tenet  of  the  school  which  he  most 
affected,  that  probability  was  the  nearest  approach 
that  man  could  make  to  speculative  truth.  "  We  are 
not  among  those,"  he  says,  "  to  whom  there  seems  to 
be  no  such  thing  as  truth  ;  but  we  say  that  all  truths 
have  some  falsehoods  attached  to  them  which  have  so 
strong  a  resemblance  to  truth,  that  in  such  cases  there 
is  no  certain  note  of  distinction  which  can  determine 
our  judgment  and  assent.  The  consequence  of  which 
is  that  there  are  many  things  probable ;  and  although 
they  are  not  subjects  of  actual  perception  to  our 
senses,  yet  they  have  so  grand  and  glorious  an 
:ispect  that  a  wise  man  governs  liis  life  thereby."  * 
[t  remained  for  one  of  our  ablest  and  most  philoso- 
phical Christian  writers  to  prove  that  in  such  matters 
probability  was  practically  equivalent  to  demonstra- 
tion, f     Cicero's  own   form  of  scepticism  in  religious 

*  De  Nat.  Deor.  i.  5. 

t  "To  us,  prol)ability  is  tlie  very  guide  of  life." — Introd. 
to  Butler's  Analoiiv. 


'Oy    THE   yATCRE   UF   THE   GODS:  193 

matters  is  perbaps  very  nearly  expressed  in  the  strik- 
ing anecdote  which  he  puts,  in  this  dialogue,  into  the 
mouth  of  the  Epicurean. 

"If  you  ask  me  what  the  Deity  is,  or  what  his 
nature  and  attributes  are,  I  should  follow  the  example 
of  Simonides,  who,  when  the  tyrant  Hiero  proposed 
to  him  the  same  question,  asked  a  day  to  consider  of  it. 
AVhen  the  king,  on  the  next  dpy,  required  from  him 
tlie  answer,  Simonides  requested  two  days  more ;  and 
when  he  went  on  continually  asking  double  the  time, 
instead  of  giving  any  answer,  Hiero  in  amazement 
demanded  of  him  the  reason.  '  iJecause,'  replied  he, 
'  tlie  longer  I  meditate  on  the  question,  the  more 
obscure  does  it  appear.'"* 

The  position  of  Cicero  as  a  statesman,  and  also  as  a 
member  of  the  College  of  Augurs,  no  doubt  checked 
any  strong  expression  of  opinion  on  his  part  as  to  the 
Ibrms  of  popular  worship  and  many  particulars  of 
popular  belief.  In  the  treatise  which  he  intended  as 
in  some  sort  a  sequel  to  this  Dialogue  on  the  '  Mature 
of  the  Gods  ' — that  upon  '  Divination ' — he  states  the 
arguments  for  and  against  the  national  belief  in  omens, 
auguries,  dreams,  and  such  intimations  of  the  Divine 
will.t  He  puts  the  defence  of  the  system  in  the 
mouth  of  his  brother  Quintus,  and  takes  himself  the 
destructive  side  of  the  argument :  but  whether  this 
was  meant  to  give  his  own  real  views  on  the  subject, 

*  De  Nat.  Deor.  i.  22. 

■\  There  is  a  third  treatise,  '  De  Fato,'  apparently  a  continua- 
tion of  the  series,  of  which  only  a  portion  has  reached  us.     It 
is  a  discussion  of  the  difficult  questions  of  Fate  and  Free-will. 
A.  C.  voL  ix.  N 


194  CICERO'S  RELIGION. 

we  cannot  be  so  certain.  The  course  of  argninent 
employed  on  botli  sides  would  rather  lead  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  Avriter's  opinion  was  very  much 
that  which  Johnson  delivered  as  to  the  reality  of 
ghosts — "  All  argument  is  against  it,  but  all  belief  is 
for  it." 

With  regard  to  the  great  questions  of  the  soul's  im- 
mortality, and  a  state  of  future  rewards  and  punish- 
ments, it  would  be  quite  jDossible  to  gather  from  Cicero's 
writings  passages  expressive  of  entirely  contradictory 
views.  The  bent  of  his  mind,  as  has  been  sufficiently 
shown,  was  towards  doubt,  and  still  more  towards  dis- 
cussion ;  and  possibly  his  opinions  were  not  so  entirely 
in  a  state  of  flux  as  the  remains  of  his  writings  seem 
to  show.  In  a  future  state  of  some  kind  he  must  cer- 
tainly have  believed — that  is,  with  such  belief  as  he 
would  have  considered  the  subject-matter  to  admit  of 
— as  a  strong  probability.  In  a  speculative  fragment 
which  has  come  down  to  us,  known  as  '  Scipio's  Dream,' 
we  seem  to  have  the  creed  of  the  man  rather  than  tlie 
speculations  of  the  philosoj)lier.  Scipio  Africanus  the 
elder  appears  in  a  dream  to  the  younger  who  bore  his 
name  (his  grandson  by  adoption).  He  shows  him  a 
vision  of  heaven  -,  bids  him  listen  to  the  music  of  the 
spheres,  which,  as  they  move  in  their  order,  "  by  a 
modulation  of  high  and  low  sounds,"  give  forth  that 
harmony  which  men  have  in  some  poor  sort  reduced  to 
notation.  He  bids  him  look  down  upon  the  earth, 
contracted  to  a  mere  speck  in  the  distance,  and  draws 
a  lesson  of  the  poverty  of  all  mere  eartldy  fame 
and  glory.      "  I^'or  all  those  who  have  preserved,  or 


CICERO'S  RELIGIOX.  195 

aided,  or  benefited  their  country,  there  is  a  fixed  and 
definite  place  in  heaven,  where  they  shall  be  happy  in 
the  enjoyment  of  everlasting  life."  But  "  the  souls  of 
those  who  have  given  themselves  up  to  the  pleasures 
of  sense,  and  made  themselves,  as  it  were,  the  servants 
of  these, — who  at  the  bidding  of  the  lusts  which  wait 
upon  pleasure  have  violated  the  laws  of  gods  and  men, 
—  they,  when  they  escape  from  the  body,  flit  still 
around  the  earth,  and  never  attain  to  these  abodes 
but  after  many  ages  of  wandering."  We  may  gathei 
that  his  creed  admitted  a  Valhalla  for  the  hero  and 
the  patriot,  and  a  long  process  of  expiation  for  the 
wicked. 

There  is  a  curious  passage  preserved  by  St  Augustin 
from  that  one  of  Cicero's  works  which  he  most  admired 
— the  lost  treatise  on  '  Glory '  * — which  seems  to  show 
that  so  far  from  being  a  materialist,  he  held  the  body 
\o  be  a  sort  of  purgatory  for  the  soul. 

"  The  mistakes  and  the  sufferings  of  human  life 
nake  me  think  sometimes  that  those  ancient  seers,  or 
interpreters  of  the  secrets  of  heaven  and  the  counsels 
of  the  Divine  mind,  had  some  glimpse  of  the  truth, 
wlien  they  said  that  men  are  born  in  order  to  suffer 
the  penalty  for  some  sins  committed  in  a  former  life  ; 
and  that  the  idea  is  true  which  we  find  in  Aristotle, 
that  we  are  suffering  some  such  punishment  as  theirs  of 
old,  who  fell  into  the  hands  of  those  Etruscan  bandits, 
and  were  put  to  death  with  a  studied  cruelty  ;  their 
living  bodies  being  tied  to  dead  bodies,  face  to  face, 
in  closest  possible  conjunction  :  that  so  our  souls  are 

/*  See  p.  29. 


i9G  CICERO'S  religion: 

coupled  to  our  bodies,  united  like  the  liviug  with  the 
dead." 

But  whatever  miglit  have  been  tlie  theological  side, 
if  one  may  so  express  it,  of  Cicero's  religion,  tlie  moral 
aphorisms  Avhich  meet  us  liere  and  there  in  his  works 
have  often  in  them  a  teaching  which  comes  near  the 
tone  of  Christian  etliics.  The  words  of  Petrarch  are 
liardly  too  strong — "  You  would  fancy  sometimes  it 
was  not  a  Pagan  philosopher  but  a  Christian  apostle 
who  was  speaking "  *  These  are  but  a  few  out  of 
many  which  might  be  quoted  : — "  Strive  ever  for  the 
truth,  and  so  reckon  as  that  not  thou  art  mortal,  but 
only  this  thy  body  ,  for  thou  art  not  that  which  this 
outward  form  of  thine  shows  forth,  but  each  man's 
mind,  that  is  the  real  man — not  the  shape  which  can 
be  traced  with  the  finger." t  "Yea,  rather,  they  live 
who  have  escaped  from  the  bonds  of  their  flesh 
as  from  a  prison-house."  "  Follow  after  justice  and 
duty;  such  a  life  is  the  jiath  to  heavem  and  into  yon 
assembly  of  those  who  have  once  lived,  and  now,  re- 
leased from  the  body,  dwell  in  that  place."  V/here, 
in  any  other  heathen  writer,  shall  we  find  such  noble 
words  as  those  which  close  the  apostrophe  in  the  Tus- 
culans? — "  One  single  day  well  sj)cnt,  and  in  accord- 
ance with  thy  precepts,  were  better  to  be  chosen  than 
an  immortality  of  sin  !  "  %  He  is  addressing  himself, 
it  is  true,  to  Philosophy  ,  hut  his  Philosophy  is  here 
little   less  than   the  Wisdom  of   Scripture  :    and  the 

*  "  Interdiiin  non  Paganum  philosophum,  sed  apostolura  lo(|ui 
putes. " 

+  'The  Droam  of  Scipio.'  X  Tusc,  v.  2. 


CICERO'S  RELIGIOX.  1<J7 

spiritual  aspiration  is  the  same — only  uttered  under 
greater  difficulties — as  that  of  the  Psalmist  when  lie 
exclaims,  "  One  day  in  thy  courts  is  better  than  n 
thousand  !  "  We  may  or  may  not  adopt  Erasmus's  view 
of  his  inspiration — or  rather,  inspiration  is  a  word  which 
has  more  than  one  definition,  and  this  would  depend 
upon  which  definition  we  take ;  but  we  may  well 
sympathise  with  the  old  scholar  when  he  says — "  I 
feel  a  better  man  for  reading  Cicero." 


END    OF   CICRRO. 


HOME  USE 

CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 

MAIN  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 
1 -month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling  642-3405. 
6-month  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing  books 

to  Circulation  Desk. 

Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4  days  prior 

to  due  date. 

ALL  BOOKS  ARE  SUBJECT  TO  RECALL  7  DAYS 
AFTER  DATE  CHECKED  OUT. 


■HTOa  JAN  16  74^2Pli 


r?r"i''^^!>. 


DLC    1  ion:»     — 


I     -J 


n-i%\ 


DEC  2  .-^ 


REcev 
DEC,     il'^.  

LD2i-A307n-7,'2ay-|r»N  Of^  *  General  Library 
(R22'I&at«r|C|WA-Bi  '^  University  of  California 


•©^o 


Berkeley 


,-<   -  ,-^,   ;-i 


ijftJO'Si 


:.[!AaQ;j5'^-'r    ,,^^'^  >  ^^  '  ■/>;  ^^ 


iiam  LD'tC'f 


W), 


^2  9  AN|9  5 


\  GENERAL  LIBRARY  -  U.C.  BERKELEY 


ill 


BQDQ7Mt,^3fl 


^wl/i,*-^v. 


i^^    g^>t 


.^j^j^iy^^^^^     ^ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNI4  UBRARY 


